


Silent Screams and Surprising Saviours

by normalisoverrated



Series: Silent Screams and Surprising Saviours [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (not really) - Freeform, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Peter Parker, Depression, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Female Peter Parker, Fluff and Angst, Foster Care, Found Family, Genius Peter Parker, Grief/Mourning, Hope, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Intern Peter Parker, Mentioned Skip Westcott, Mute Peter Parker, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nightmares, Optimism, Orphan Peter Parker, Panic Attacks, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Past Rape/Non-con, Penny Parker has got this, Penny Parker is too young for this, Pepper Potts Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Peter Parker Can't Thermoregulate, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker has PTSD, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Mess, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Pepper Potts, Protective Tony Stark, Sign Language, Smart Peter Parker, Sort Of, Spider-woman - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark would like his intern to start letting people help her, Trauma, Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker Friendship, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Wanda Maximoff is too young for this, healing is hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/normalisoverrated/pseuds/normalisoverrated
Summary: Spider Woman is everything Penny Parker is not.Spider Woman is brave and strong and confident.Penny Parker is small and jumpy and has panic attacks in the bathrooms.Spider Woman talks incessantly.Penny Parker hasn't said a single word since she walked into school four years ago with haunted eyes and bruises circling her neck.Spider Woman stops bad things from from happening.Penny Parker can barely make it through each day.Spider Woman is everything Penny Parker is not, so how can they be the same person? Even Penny can't explain it, she just knows that for the first time in a long, long time, she isn't helpless anymore.But then she gets an internship at Stark Industries, and Tony Stark starts taking an interest in Penny Parker.And then Natasha Romanoff starts taking an interest in Spider Woman and this Really Wasn't Part Of The Plan.But Spider Woman can talk and Penny Parker can't, so surely even they can't work it out...right?Rating is for mentions of past rape and present trauma.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker
Series: Silent Screams and Surprising Saviours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2210139
Comments: 479
Kudos: 894





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for memories of past rape, and for depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts. Usually I try to mark specific instances of triggers so people can still read the story without reading those bits, but it's too central in this story and there wouldn't be much story left if I did. Trauma has a way of squirming it's way into every part of your life and I've written as such. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU MIGHT BE TRIGGERED.
> 
> That said, this fic isn't entirely angst, although it is fairly angsty. There's some fluff and a lot of bonding in it as well.
> 
> This is fully written, so updates will be regular (I'm gonna post the first chapter today, but I'll generally post on Mondays, feel free to send me irritated comments if I forget) but this isn't as carefully proof read as I'd like because I have too much course work and I just plain don't have time. Sorry. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think. :-)

It was a Thursday when Penny Parker stopped talking.

Uncle Ben had only come back at 3am the night before. She’d heard him. She’d been awake.

He hadn’t woken up in time to see her before she left for school. It wasn’t unexpected, he’d expected the gala to run late, and therefore to get off work late, and Penny had said she’d be fine to get breakfast and walk to the bus stop on her own. She was almost 11, she could manage a morning alone.

She didn’t get breakfast. She got dressed, she managed that. But everything around her seemed so slow, and she’d felt too sick to eat, so she just left and gone to the bus stop.

She remembered that the world around her had seemed to flash, like her vision was lagging behind her eyes, but it wasn’t really, it was just her mind playing tricks on her. She curled up on the corner seat, right at the very back of the bus and stared out the window into nothing. She was the last one off the bus when it got to school, moving slowly enough that the driver yelled at her to hurry up. Ned ran up to her when she eventually got off, his mom drove him to school but he always waited for her. He was talking about some cool lego set he was saving up for, and asking if Penny would save up with him, but she couldn’t quite make the words make sense at the speed she normally could. Everything had seemed so slow, so far away. She sat down in her seat with her coat still zipped up, and the teacher sent her to the cloakroom to put it away.

She didn’t want to take the coat off. She remembered that. Everything had been so slow and far away, and the entire world seemed dreamlike, but she hadn’t wanted to take the coat off. But the teacher said she had to, so she unzipped it and hung it up. Her jumper was on inside out. She hadn’t noticed earlier. It didn’t seem important anyway. She walked back out of the cloak room and sat down. She remembered the way silence seemed to follow her across the room like a wave. She remembered the teacher turning round. She remembered the pile of books in the teacher’s hands thudding to the ground.

She remembered being asked questions. Question after question after question. She remembered opening her mouth, remembered nothing coming out. She remembered uncle Ben arriving at the school, sprinting into the nurses room, and the horror in his eyes as he saw the dark bruises around her throat and wrists. She remembered the police coming, and more questions until uncle Ben made them go away. She remembered the hospital, and more questions. She remembered the doctor, hours or days later asking her to open her mouth, asking her to say ‘ahh’ and just looking at him.

She didn’t say a word through any of it.

\--------

There was nothing wrong with her voice box. The doctors had examined her multiple times in the days and weeks that followed, and eventually she’d heard one tell uncle Ben that she could talk, she was just choosing not to. Penny didn’t think she was choosing anything. She couldn’t talk.

It wasn’t that her throat was damaged. If she chose to talk her voice would work. It was just that she couldn’t choose it. She couldn’t talk.

She couldn’t rationalise it to herself. Couldn’t explain ‘this is why I can’t talk’, she just couldn’t. She tried to make herself, one day months after _it_ , but when she opened her mouth nothing came out. She gave up eventually.

Three months after _it_ uncle Ben took her to a sign language class so she could stop having to write everything down. He went with her every day for another three months, and then couldn’t afford it any longer, but it was ok, they had the basics all down, and they could (and did) learn the rest of the vocabulary off the internet.

Ned learned sign language too. He learnt it more slowly, because his parents wouldn’t send him to classes, so he had to completely teach himself, but it meant more to Penny than she could ever express. Ned never asked what had happened. Lots of the other kids did, and some jeered at her for her silence, and others called her attention seeking, but Ned never asked or pushed or laughed. Without Ned, Penny didn’t think she would have made it through the rest of the school year. So when Ned told her his parents were making him apply to Midtown school of science and technology, Penny applied too, and she studied as hard as she could for the entrance exams so she could get a scholarship. She’d always been smart, always been bored while her classmates struggled, but she wasn’t sure if smart would be good enough. Everyone applying to Midtown would be smart. And she was mute. Would Midtown want a mute scholarship kid? She managed to get the scholarship anyway.

Things were better at Midtown. She heard some of the kids whispering that she only got the scholarship because she was mute, because it looked good for the school. Penny didn’t care. She was with Ned, and nobody else from their old school went to Midtown. Nobody remembered that she used to talk. Nobody remembered that she’d walked into school one morning with hollow eyes and bruises around her neck.

Most of the teachers never called on her in class, and she never raised her hand. It suited Penny fine. She didn’t want attention. Attention felt dangerous. And she could often do her own thing if the teachers ignored her. It let her study different stuff in class. Stuff that didn’t bore her. She did the class work when it was handed out, and her homework, and maintained straight As, but she also did her own stuff, borrowed textbooks from the library and set out on her own personal mission to work out how the world worked. She liked chemistry best, although engineering was a close second.

Some of the kids picked on her, and occasionally one or two of the teachers, but it was better than her last school, and the library on its own was enough to make her want to stay. The school offered her someone to help her in class, but she refused it. She didn’t need help, and she didn’t want someone looking over her shoulder. She was managing fine.

When she was thirteen Flash Thomson started picking on her properly. He started small, little comments about ‘the dumb kid’, and then moved on to putting gum in her hair, or throwing spitballs, and from there to tripping her and shoving her into the lockers. She was the perfect victim, she never spoke, never told anyone. She could write it down of course, or sign to Ned to tell someone, but she didn’t, and she wouldn’t let Ned tell anyone. It would only get worse if she complained, and she still liked it at Midtown.

She joined the robotics club that year as well. Ned joined academic decathlon as well, because his parents wanted him too, but Penny didn’t. She thought about it, and Ned said they’d make a way for her to take part, that they’d have to or they’d get in trouble for excluding her, but Penny didn’t want to stick out in it. She preferred to be invisible. And robotics was more fun. She started going through dumpsters around then too, salvaging electronics for parts. Uncle Ben let her tinker with whatever she wanted, even got her a good toolkit for her birthday. He said not to listen to anyone who told her girls weren’t supposed to be into engineering, so Penny didn’t listen. That was one advantage of being mute, people didn’t expect you to respond, so they didn’t notice if you didn’t listen.

When Penny was almost fourteen, uncle Ben was shot. They’d been shopping together, and three men came in with guns, and uncle Ben tried to interfere because he worked as a security guard. One of the men came up behind him and shot him in the back and Penny screamed so loud one of the men shoved a gun in her face and told her to shut up or he’d blow her brains out. It was the first sound Penny had made with her voice in four years. She closed her mouth and shut up.

Uncle Ben was dead. She found out later that he’d died as soon as the bullet hit. He hadn’t suffered. Sometimes, Penny wished the robbers had shot her too.

The police got them. Penny saw it on the news, and a policeman came to tell her. They got them and they locked them up, and Penny was supposed to find it comforting that they were being punished for it.

Penny had learned long ago that bad people being punished didn’t make anything better. Skip being arrested hadn’t made her feel better. The robbers being arrested didn’t bring uncle Ben back. She wondered if uncle Ben would have lived if she’d been able to speak to warn him someone was behind him. She tried not to think about it. She tried not to think about a lot of things.

They put her in a massive group home for a couple of weeks, and then she got fostered into a smaller group home. There were less kids there, but only two carers, a husband and a wife, and they were overworked and Penny was silent and it was easy to be invisible. She kept her scholarship at Midtown, she kept that, and it was the only thing that kept her going. Ned stuck with her and helped in any way he could. Some of the teachers did too, in their own way. They let her use the labs after school hours sometimes, while they marked homework.

One of the kids in the group home was fostered, and then adopted, and the social workers looking after them said that maybe they’d all be adopted someday. Penny doubted it. It was the youngest kid who got adopted, the rest of them were too old for parents to want them. And Penny didn’t talk. Who would want her?

Things got a bit better as time went on, or at least Penny told herself they did. Things got less raw at least. She tried to look on the bright side, at least she had her own room. She didn’t think she could have been able to deal with it if she didn’t. Her room was tiny, but at least it was hers, and it had a lock on the door. Locks were important to Penny.

In November it was announced that Stark Industries were going to take on ten interns from high-schools in New York, and there was going to be a competition to win the places. Penny was only just old enough, you had to be fourteen, and she didn’t think she had a chance. It sounded like they were really looking for older interns, they just wanted to look like they were giving the younger students a chance. And Penny didn’t speak anyway, she couldn’t do it.

But one of her teachers handed her a packet of information after class one day, and said she should enter, and that even if she didn’t get in, she’d have fun making a project. He made a good point, so Penny filled out the paperwork, and got her guardians to fill out the ‘parent or guardian’ bits, and brainstormed projects with Ned. Ned wasn’t applying, because his parents wouldn’t let him because he’d gotten caught hacking again a week ago, and they were still mad. But Ned brushed it off and helped her brainstorm projects. Penny made a robot in the end, because she thought it would be fun to make a robot like R2D2. It didn’t come out very well in the end, she couldn’t get it to roll smoothly like it did in the film, and it didn’t look that much like R2D2 because she gave it arms so she could program it to bring her things on command. She did manage to get it good enough that it could write with a pencil though, and she was proud of it, even if she was a little embarrassed to hand it over to the Stark Industries people in December. Someone came to the school to collect the projects of the students who entered. Almost fifty people entered from Midtown, and Penny wondered if it was just Midtown where so many students entered, or if the less science focused schools had lots of students enter too. She knew she wasn’t going to get it anyway. She knew her guardians had written on her form that she was mute and would need special help. Even if she wasn’t on the young end, and even if her project was better, they wouldn’t pick her. It had been fun though.

\--------

They went to tour Osborn Research Labs as the end of semester school trip. Her entire year group went, and Flash was being particularly cruel that day, so Penny dropped back and did her best to disappear. There were too many students really, to all tour at once, and even keeping at the very back she kept getting shoved around. It was horrible because she didn’t like physical touch from anyone not family at the best of times, and people kept knocking into her or crowding her, and she couldn’t even enjoy the advanced science all around her. When someone in a lab coat at the front shouted to let him through she got shoved so hard she tripped backwards and hit a door, which was unfortunately unlocked, and she fell through it, flailing for balance. Her hand hit a glass tank of something, and it hurt so much it took her several seconds to realise she’d knocked the tank lid off and several spiders had climbed out.

Horrified, she scooped them up and deposited them back in the tank, put the lid back on properly, and backed out of the lab, which was mercifully empty. She reluctantly rejoined the crowd of her classmates, desperately trying not to let anyone touch her, but failing miserably. She told a teacher she didn’t feel well half an hour later, unable to bear it anymore, and went to sit in the couch with the driver for the rest of the trip, irritated and miserable to miss all the science.

She puked her guts up that night, and thought nothing of it. She’d been feeling queasy ever since people had started knocking into her that morning, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d puked after something like that. She reassured the Prescotts that she was fine, and managed to convince them to just let her have an early night, and triple checked she’d locked the door before she slept.

She dreamed of heat and pain and darkness and hot breath and fear, and woke up hours later than usual to Mr Prescott banging on the door shouting for her to get up and do her chores. She tried to climb out of bed and accidentally jumped out instead. The world snapped into focus around her, unlike the blur she’d been used to all her life without her glasses. She felt her face to make sure she hadn’t slept in her glasses, but she hadn’t. But she could see! But she wasn’t wearing her glasses! But she could _see_!

Things only got weirder from there. It took her half an hour to get dressed, because she kept sticking to things, and then she realised it wasn’t just her eyesight that had changed, she could hear and smell more too. It took her two hours to make it downstairs to do her chores, and Mr Prescott gave her more chores as punishment (or rather because he needed stuff from the shops and didn’t have time to go himself), and sent her shopping. Penny carried two stuffed bags of shopping and didn’t feel the weight at all, and realised she had abs. She put the shopping away, went back upstairs, locked the door and stripped, looking at herself in the mirror and trying to work out how she’d grown so much muscle overnight. And how her eyesight had fixed itself, and how her ears had gotten more sensitive, and how she could smell exactly what was being cooked downstairs, and how she’d walked for half an hour in the freezing cold without her asthma making itself felt.

It took her two days to absorb that she had changed. Two days for it to sink in. It wasn’t until she was sorting out her washing and a crushed red spider fell out of her T-shirt that she realised what had happened and fully absorbed that she had changed. That she would never be the same again.

Things got better. Not in slow drips. Not in the way of things becoming less raw and immediately painful. But really, properly better.

There were downsides. She quickly worked out she couldn’t thermoregulate much anymore, and she was constantly hungry, and there was never food spare in the group home, and she spent hours curled up in a ball in her room overwhelmed by everything she could hear and see and smell and feel. But the upsides were so much bigger.

She wasn’t weak anymore. She wasn’t _helpless_ anymore.

She’d known what she wanted to do the moment she’d seen that spider (which she’d buried in the park, she didn’t think she should leave it lying around) and absorbed that she’d changed. It took her two days to cobble together a costume from dumpsters and charity shops. And then she hit the streets.

It wasn’t hard to climb out of her window, not now she could stick to walls. It was hard to keep warm, but she layered up under the suit and kept moving to help her reduced thermoregulation as much as she could. She stopped two muggings that first night, and realised two things. One, she needed a much better way of getting around. Two, she needed a better way to deal with muggers than shoving and hitting them until they ran off.

It took her a week to make her first version of her web-fluid (which she managed only because she still had some chemicals left from the chemistry kit uncle Ben had gotten her for Christmas two years ago) and web-shooters (from the leftover accumulated scraps she’d used to build the robot that was supposed to be R2D2), and another week to make versions that actually worked smoothly. And then it took her another week to get the hang of it, and then she was really in business.

By early January she was going out almost every night, and most of the time it was just helping old people carry shopping, or rescuing cats from trees, or stopping the odd bike theft, but she’d also stopped ten muggings. She left the muggers webbed up each time, and watched their would-be-victims call the police, and watched from afar as muggers were arrested before they could hurt anyone. It felt good to watch. It felt like she was making a difference. Like she was making Queens a better place. It made it all the hunger and cold and sensory overload worth it, no, more than worth it. For the first time in four years she didn’t feel helpless. As soon as she put the costume on it was like she became someone else.

As Spiderman (as some blogger named her) she wasn’t afraid of anything. She didn’t feel small or helpless or broken. As Spider ‘man’ she could change things, she could make a difference. And people liked her. Blogs sprang up about her, clips appeared on YouTube of her. Spiderman was making a difference, making the world a better place, and with every little way she helped, Penny felt like she was reclaiming a tiny piece of herself.

Two days before school started again, she stopped another mugging and when the guy she rescued said thank you, she said “You’re welcome” back.

They were the first words she’d spoken in over four years, and her voice was rough and raspy and she was so stunned that the words had come out of her mouth that she froze in place for a solid five seconds before she remembered she had been about to leave and webbed away.

She made it to a roof top and sat there in stunned stillness for almost half an hour, and then said aloud. “I spoke. I just did it again. I’m talking! I’m _talking!_ ”

She went downstairs the next morning, full of excitement and ready to announce she could talk again, but when she opened her mouth nothing came out. One of her foster siblings cracked up laughing looking at her, and she burst into tears and ran back upstairs. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself speak. She spent the entire day trying, even wrote out sentences to say and tried to just read it aloud, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t make the words come.

Penny Parker couldn’t talk. Penny Parker hadn’t said a word since the night before that Thursday morning over four years ago. Penny Parker was mute. She cried that afternoon, cried until her head throbbed with it and her throat was raw. Cried with frustration and anger and all the other things that hadn’t really gone away. Cried because Penny Parker was weak and mute and broken, and cried because uncle Ben was gone.  
  


When she went out that night she could talk again. Hidden behind a mask, swinging around Queens with her webs, she could talk. She talked to everyone she saw, talked just because she could, talked until her throat ached and she didn’t even care that people were looking at her even more weirdly than they usually did.

School started the next day and Penny Parker still couldn’t talk. She concluded that Spider Woman was different, that she was different when she put on the costume. She didn’t try to talk again during the day.

Within a week Spiderman had become known as Spider Woman, her voice giving her away, but it didn’t matter. Penny had the perfect disguise. Who would think the chatterbox vigilante who swung around on webs and stopped muggings was the same person as silent, scared Penny Parker? Even Ned, who knew her best and had followed Spider Woman since the first clips of her (then thought of as ‘him’) hit YouTube (“Queens has it’s own superhero Pen! How cool is that!”) didn’t seem to have had the thought even cross his mind. It was so unthinkable that Penny was Spider Woman that a few times she’d forgotten it herself, and had genuinely taken part in Ned’s attempts to analyse who Spider Woman could be, only to abruptly remember and have to shake her hair over her flushing cheeks.

Three weeks into the new semester, Penny received a letter from Stark Industries. She’d gotten an internship. She read the letter, reread it twice, and then spent the next ten minutes staring at it. There had to have been some mistake. Her project had been awful! She was only fourteen! And mute! But the letter had her name on it, and further details about the internship, including a start time, and somehow, impossibly, she’d gotten in. She, Penny Parker, was one of the ten students across the entire city who would intern at Stark Industries.

She’d get to work at _Stark Industries_. She’d get to work in _Tony Stark’s_ company. In the company that came out with all the most cutting edge new tech, which had the most state of the art labs, and where _Tony Stark worked._ Ned was going to flip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on depictions of the foster system and disability: I know basically nothing about the American foster system, so assume all depictions of it are completely made up because they are. Also, this is narrated from Penny's perspective, and she generally feels like being disabled by being unable to speak makes her less desirable as a student, foster kid, intern.... That is NOT my opinion though, just wanted to make that clear.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! Next chapter will be up tomorrow since it's a Monday.
> 
> Comments make me happy :-)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Penny starts her internship and Spider Woman gets a little bit ambushed.

The first day of the internship dawned so cold Penny felt like she might freeze to death. By the time she made it into Midtown she was moving slowly, stiff with cold, and she made a beeline for the closest radiator and huddled next to it until she warmed to merely shivering rather than shaking violently with cold. She really, really, really needed to find a way to keep warmer. She was wearing as many layers as she could possibly get away with, and it still wasn’t enough. She’d looked longingly at the thermals in the shops, but she didn’t have the money to buy even the cheapest, and she wasn’t quite desperate enough to steal one. She’d been searching charity shops and dumpsters, but both were a long shot. But she needed some kind of solution, this was the third morning she’d almost frozen coming into school. She was loosing heat faster than she was producing it.

She barely made it to class before the bell went, and Flash stuck a leg out to trip her as she headed to her seat at the back of the class. Penny saw it coming, but had to let herself fall. She wouldn’t have been able to dodge it before the bite, so she couldn’t dodge it after it. Several students laughed, and Penny flushed hotly, wishing she could turn herself invisible. She picked herself off the floor and slunk to her seat at the back, trying not to care about the hot ball of humiliation in her gut. The class only got worse from there.

The teacher handed out a surprise quiz which meant Penny couldn’t pull out a textbook and study her own stuff when she got bored. She finished the thing in ten minutes, and then fell asleep on her desk. She’d been out later than usual patrolling, and tiredness was tugging at her. She woke to Ned poking her desperately, the teacher glaring, and the entire class laughing at her. The only reason she managed to escape detention was the fact that her test was done. Well, the teacher threatened to give her detention anyway if she had gotten less than 90% but Penny was confident she’d gotten 100% so she wasn’t worried.

Ned talked her ear off over lunch about Stark Industries and Avengers Tower, and Penny let him, even though she knew all the stuff he was saying already (she may have been obsessed with Stark Tower (now Avengers Tower) when it was built, being fascinated especially by the arc reactor that powered it). She liked listening to Ned get excited about stuff they both loved, and she liked that he never felt like he had to be quiet just because she was. She made the odd comment with her hands, but mostly she just let Ned talk. Ned talked enough for the both of them, and Penny loved it about him. His sign language was pretty much fluent by this point, and he was good enough that he could read her hands while talking, and they could communicate really quickly.

Penny ran to the subway stop after school, trying to keep moving so she didn’t freeze. The subway was heated, but not nearly enough for her, and she was shaking with cold again by the time she got off near Avengers Tower, and she jogged the rest of the way to try to warm up again. She ended up being the first there, but the receptionist sent her straight up to the intern lab, and there was a radiator, so it turned out to be a good thing.

There were ten interns in total, and Penny was the youngest. Eight of them were 17 and 18 year olds in their final year of school, and one was 16. There were only two other girls and they were both 17, and everyone was bigger than her. It made her stand out like a sore thumb, which was made worse by her silence. It wasn’t that anyone was mean because they weren’t, it was just that Penny liked to make herself invisible, and that wasn’t possible here. It could have been worse, some of the interns were actively nice, and a couple of them talked to her and let her respond by writing things on her phone and passing it over. She had a ‘read aloud’ app that let her make her phone talk, but she didn’t like the sound of it, so she preferred to just pass the phone over.

When Dr Stag, their supervisor and boss, arrived, he gave Penny a wireless keyboard and showed her how to type messages on it to make them appear on his screen, and how to type messages to make them appear on the big shared screen at the side of the lab. He told her to come to him if she had any issues, and then moved on. Penny was grateful he hadn’t made a big deal out of it.

The first day was mostly orientation. They got taken down to administration to have their photos taken and ID cards issued. Their cards gave them access to the intern labs and a few other floors, including the catering floor. Their cards also gave them access to a free meal every day, which made Penny have to physically bite her lip to stop herself grinning stupidly. She was so hungry all the time that three extra meals a week sounded like a lifeline.

After administration, they got taken on a tour of some of the main areas of the Tower. The first 90 floors of the Tower were occupied by Stark Industries, with the top 10 floors occupied by the Avengers, who they were informed they were unlikely to see and were not to run around trying to catch a glimpse of. Penny flushed and tried to pretend she hadn’t considered it. They were shown the arc reactor in the basement, which was incredibly cool, and Penny wanted to ask about fifty questions about it but the tour guide they’d been handed off too didn’t let them ask questions. Then they got briefly shown round the floors taken up by legal, and then briefly shown around the major R&D floors. Of course, with a building as big as the Tower, even a brief tour took most of the afternoon, and there wasn’t much time left by the time they were sent back to the interns floor.

They were the only interns who hadn’t graduated from college, and Dr Stag explained to them that their roles would be a little different from the adult interns. The adult interns were generally assigned to R&D teams, but they were going to have their own lab and projects. Some of those projects would in things Dr Stag would set them, and some would be things other scientists would send them. Dr Stag said that Dr Stark himself would set them the occasional challenge which was so awesome that Penny missed the next bit of the talk because she was too busy internally squealing.

As well as challenges, they’d have to present their projects to Dr Stag once every fortnight, and based on their performance he’d assign them to shadow a scientist working on current R&D projects for a fortnight later in the year. Their first project was to design and build a solar powered cooler. Which was ironic, because Penny needed to work out a way to stay warm and she was going to work on a way to keep things cold.

They didn’t have time to start that evening though. They had time-tabled hours, although they were allowed to stay later if they wanted to use the labs. Dr Stag didn’t want them starting something this late though, and sent them off. Penny went up to the catering floor (there was a _whole floor_ just for food) to test out the free meal every day offer, and was ecstatic to find it was real. She bought the most calorie laden pizza she could find and inhaled the lot, and felt full for the first time in weeks. Best of all, it was warm, and Penny finally realised what she should have weeks ago. She could eat or drink something warm before leaving, and she should produce heat more quickly than it could escape from her layers.

Penny went to sleep that night (after several hours of patrolling) unable to believe how good a day she’d had.

\------------

The Prescotts gave her permission to stay at Ned’s the next night, to talk about the internship. Penny wasn’t really sure the Prescotts cared that much about what she did as long as she didn’t make trouble. The thought wasn’t a nice one, and Penny tried not to think about it. She tried not to think about the Prescotts in general. It made her think of uncle Ben and how uncle Ben had cared about everything she did, but uncle Ben was dead and she mustn’t think about that or she’d break.

Staying at Ned’s meant taking a night off patrolling, but Penny didn’t mind. She hadn’t slept over at Ned’s since before Christmas, before the spider bite, and she missed spending more time with her best friend. She and Ned talked until late into the night about every little thing she’d seen in Avengers Tower, and daydreaming about meeting the Avengers. Another advantage of signing was that it made no noise, and if they put a pillow across the crack under Ned’s bedroom door then the light didn’t show, and they could talk for hours after bedtime without Ned’s parents finding out. The downside of this was of course that they were exhausted the next day, but they both felt it was worth it.

Penny did her homework in class at school, so she wouldn’t have to do it afterwards, and then snuck into one of the labs after school to hurriedly make some more web fluid (she was almost completely out, and she had no more chemicals left). She felt bad for using school chemicals for her Spider Womaning, but she rationalised that she’d wasted much less chemicals over the years because she’d always gotten experiments right the first time. She had to sprint to the subway to catch the next train, but it meant she was still warm enough not to freeze on the subway.

They got started on the project that day, in two groups of three and one group of four. Penny was in the group of four, along with Eddie, the 16 year old, and it was obvious they’d been put in the bigger group to give them more help, which was a little insulting. They finished the project first (three internship sessions later) and Penny could tell the rest of her group were just as smug as she felt about it. Dr Stag seemed to sense that, because he apologised for putting the two youngest in the big group, and said he’d mix it up next time. Penny thought it boded well for the internship that their boss was willing to admit he made a mistake.

\---------

The third week of February Penny had a panic attack.

Things had been going so well before that. The Prescotts weren’t bothering her, and nobody was noticing she was sneaking out to patrol every night. School was going well, despite Flash; the internship was still awesome; and she was getting better at staying warm and getting enough food. Spider Woman was doing great, and getting even more popular in Queens, despite what some newspapers were saying about her, and Penny rarely had nightmares after a few hours swinging around Queens.

But then Flash grabbed her jumper from behind in the corridor, and for an instant, before he pulled her backwards and then shoved her hard into a locker, Penny had thought she was somewhere else. For an instant she’d thought about one of the things she didn’t think about, and her breath had caught and adrenaline had surged and she hadn’t been able to make it stop and she hadn’t been able to stop thinking and an hour later she was having a panic attack in the nurses office.

The nurse called the Prescotts. She begged the nurse not to, but she said she had to, and Mrs Prescott came to pick her up. Penny was shaken and humiliated and wrung out, and the last thing she wanted was attention, but the Prescotts responded by giving her more attention and checking in with her every few hours for the next few days, and Penny hated it. She knew they meant well. If things had been different, if the Prescotts had been less overworked, she thought that maybe the Prescotts would have gotten to know her properly, and Penny might have grown to care about them. But things weren’t, and all the Prescotts really managed was making Penny feel like a problem, and, even worse, stop her from being able to patrol. She couldn’t risk sneaking out when they kept checking on her.

Penny thought maybe if she’d been able to patrol, it would have been ok. She would have felt better as Spider Woman. She would have swung around and maybe stopped a mugging and definitely talked to everyone she helped and she’d have been able to rest in feeling ok for a while. Spider Woman was like a whole other person to Penny, and it was easier, so much easier, to be Spider Woman than broken Penny Parker.

But she couldn’t, and instead she had another panic attack two days later. She was in her room this time, and nobody saw, but it was still awful. The only tiny silver lining was that nobody knew and so the Prescotts started easing off checking up on her. It was tiny consolation. She went into the internship the next day with exhausted bags under her eyes that she couldn’t quite manage to cover up with make-up. She’d never been much good with make up. Uncle Ben hadn’t been able to teach her, and Ned didn’t use make up, and there was only so much she could learn off YouTube.

Some of the other interns asked if she was alright but she didn’t respond, and they dropped it after a while. Penny forgot all about it when their new project was introduced. This one was more of a competition really. They had to work individually, and Dr Stag wanted them to design a crash barrier that could withstand as much force as possible. There were restrictions of course, it had to be no bigger than half a metre wide and a quarter of a metre tall, and it couldn’t be more than ten centimetres thick. It was allowed to break, as long as it didn’t fall over and it stopped whatever hit it. The barrier that could withstand the most force would win. They could use any materials available in the intern labs but they had to start and finish today, and what they managed would be tested on Monday.

If Penny had been less tired or miserable or stressed, or if less of her mind was occupied with keeping track of everything around her so she wouldn’t be startled or triggered, she probably wouldn’t have done it. But she was, and she was too tired to properly think through the risk of using Spider Woman’s web-fluid for a Penny Parker project. She was just tired enough and just miserable enough to easily justify using her web-fluid because she intended to adapt the formula, and it wouldn’t be _exactly_ like Spider Woman’s webs.

She made it stickier for one thing, much stickier. Stickier even than her first formula which had clogged up her web-shooters because it reacted too easily. And she tweaked the chemical quantities to make it more foam-like, while still maintaining it’s tensile strength and bounciness. And she removed the chemical compound that would make it dissolve after a few hours exposure to the air. Then she grabbed some flexible boards of plywood and made a layered wedge of plywood and web-fluid. To make sure it wouldn’t fall over she stuck another board underneath and painted the bottom with web-fluid and then stuck it to her workbench. It was only after she’d done it that she realised Dr Stag might not like her to stick something to the bench that he might not be able to remove. She thought about taking it off but she’d only have to stick it back on in a couple of days, so she left it.

She checked to make sure the others were all occupied with their own projects (all of which looked much more elaborate than hers. Eddie was putting layers of springs in his and she really should have thought of that and Jonathan was screwing his together and she should _definitely_ have thought of that) before putting her hands on either side of her barrier and squeezing. The plywood flexed inwards, as she’d hoped it would, and the foam pressed in and then pushed back, just like the recoil of her webs that pulled her back up into the sky. It worked.

It worked and it felt like the first thing since Flash had grabbed her jumper on Tuesday and started off her free-fall. It worked and the relief of it was enough to bring tears stinging to the backs of her eyes and she had to blink fiercely to stop them spilling over. She breathed deeply and tested it again and it still worked and she smiled for the first time in days.

It had only taken her two hours to make it, and there were still two hours of the internship left (they said they could use the labs whenever they wanted, but in practice Dr Stag tended to come to lock up around half 7 and would nudge you out the door to ‘eat and sleep’) so she cleaned up her station and then grabbed some bits and pieces from the cupboard and made a sensor to test how much force was coming out the other side of her barrier, and attached it. It didn’t add anything to the effectiveness of the barrier, but she didn’t want to go back to the group home yet. Avengers Tower was much warmer than the group home, and full of science and technology and generally so much better than the cold chaotic house where she snuck around to avoid her foster siblings as much as possible. She didn’t precisely have anything against her foster siblings, but two of them had anger issues, one of them was addicted to drugs, and she was fairly sure the other three hated her, and she just couldn’t cope with being around them too much.

When the sensor was finished she regretfully stopped loitering and headed back to the group home. She’d already had her free meal when she arrived at the Tower, but the Prescotts didn’t know about that so she could eat again at the home. The evenings after internship days were the only days she didn’t feel hungry, and she made the most of them. Even better, the Prescotts had backed off enough to stop checking on her and she could go out patrolling again tonight.

Penny wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that the Prescotts had stopped checking on her so easily. It gave her more freedom but...uncle Ben would never have gone back to ignoring her so easily. Uncle Ben never ignored her at all. But Penny didn’t think about that.

Pulling on her suit and climbing out the window again felt wonderful, and swinging through Queens felt even better. She swung through the streets as fast as she possibly could, whooping with glee, and relishing the sounds that came out of her throat. Her throat never failed to make the sounds when she was Spider Woman. Her throat would never make a single sound when she was Penny Parker. But Penny didn’t think about that. Penny didn’t think about a lot of things.

She stopped a mugging and two bike thefts, and helped an exhausted looking dad carry six bags of shopping to his apartment. She didn’t go back to the home until almost midnight, and then slept without nightmares for the first time all week. In the morning she told Mrs Prescott she was spending the day at Ned’s and ran out before she could decide whether or not to ask for more information. She spent the whole morning in the suit, swinging around Queens, and stopped four attempted bike thefts before lunch and helped nine people carry shopping. She saw Mr Prescott beneath her around noon and almost dropped her web and fell out of the sky and decided it was time to take a break. She found a convenient rooftop and collapsed, her heart beating wildly. For an instant she’d been sure Mr Prescott had known, even though he hadn’t even glanced up at her.

“You know, that suit looks even worse up close.”

Penny shrieked and fell off the roof, falling in a dizzy blur for a second before she managed to grab the wall of the building and stick, and then climb back up. She almost fell off the roof again when she saw who it was that had spoken.

“Heckity darn you’re the Falcon! And the Scarlet Witch! The Falcon and the Scarlet Witch are standing on a roof in Queens! Is this a dream? Did I oversleep?” Penny pinched her arm hard “Ow! Not a dream. Oh no, I’m babbling. Shut me up, _please_.”

The Scarlet Witch stuck a hand out at the Falcon “Pay up Sam, there’s _no way_ she’s a policewoman.”

“Hey” protested Spider Woman reflexively, feeling like she was being insulted even if she couldn’t quite work out how.

“No way, that doesn’t prove anything, police can still get startled.” The Falcon protested “You’re a policewoman aren’t you? You can admit it, we won’t tell anyone.”

“Police can get startled but have you ever heard one of them say ‘heckity darn’??? No offence to you but there’s no way you’re police.”

“Ummm” Spider Woman said, wondering what on earth was happening.

“Hey, let her answer, are you a policewoman?”

Spider Woman opened and closed her mouth like a fish, before finally saying “Are you betting about me?”

The Falcon shrugged, looking a little sheepish. The Scarlet Witch was more blunt “Yes. Are you a policewoman? This idiot and Clint think you’re some frustrated policewoman who got tired of the criminals getting away with it. They’ve been watching too many cop shows and, in Clint’s case, forgetting he’s highly trained.”

There was a moments pause and then Falcon turned indignantly to the Scarlet Witch “What do you mean in _Clint’s_ case????”

Spider Woman snorted with laughter, for an instant forgetting who was standing in front of her, and then falling abruptly silent as she remembered that these two were freaking _Avengers_.

The Falcon turned back to her “So are you a policewoman? So I can prove my _completely under-appreciative team mates_ wrong.”

“Uhh, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to tell you that. Secret identity and all.” Spider Woman said, gesturing upwards at her mask.

“Aww come on, you can’t hide behind a mask forever.”

Spider Woman edged nervously backwards towards the edge of the roof. “Yes I can.”

Scarlet Witch snorted “You know we can both fly right? We could follow you off the roof. On the topic of which, nice fall earlier.”

“Hey! You snuck up on me!” Spider Woman protested, internally grumbling. Stupid spidey-sense, why couldn’t it warn her that people were behind her the way it did if someone with ill-intent was?

“Not our fault you have no self awareness. So how about it, want to settle our bet?”

Spider Woman looked from one Avenger to the other and decided discretion was the better part of valour (or in this case, the best way out of this frankly surreal conversation in which she had no _clue_ what she was supposed to do because these were fricking _Avengers_ betting about her on their downtime.).

“I’m going back to patrolling.” she announced, and jumped off the roof.

“Hey wait! We need to talk to you!”

Spider Woman ignored them and swung off, only to hear the buzzing sound of machinery behind her and see a flash of red light out of the corner of her eye. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t you guys have better things to do?”

“Come back and we’ll tell you about them.”

Spider Woman weighed her options for an instant, then twisted round and shot a web the way she came, pulling hard to shoot herself back towards the roof, flying past a stunned Falcon who took several more seconds to turn. Spider Woman waited for both Avengers to land and then shot her webbing at their feet before her better judgement could catch up with her, and then jumped off the roof and webbed away as fast as she could.

The last she heard of the two Avengers was the Falcon swearing and the Scarlet Witch complaining “How strong is this stuff??”

\-----------

She went back to the alley near the group home to change and grab her stuff, and then went to Ned’s for real. It wasn’t until she was walking to Ned’s that it actually sunk in that she’d just _attacked the Avengers_.

She was dead. She was so dead. She’d _attacked the Avengers!_ It took another block for her to remember that the Avengers had no idea who she was, that nobody knew that Penny Parker and Spider Woman were the same person, and nobody was going to come after her, not as Penny Parker anyway. And at least she hadn’t hurt them...just...stuck them to a roof. It could be worse right? It could definitely be worse.

Penny was a strong supporter of looking on the bright side, even on the days when there wasn’t much bright side to look on. She’d be ok if she looked on the bright side. She’d been ok so far, as long as she focussed on the positives. As long as she didn’t think about the negatives, then she was ok. Focus on the positives. The Avengers didn’t know who she was. And hey, she’d met two Avengers! Who else did she know who could say that?

Now she wasn’t shocked or panicking, it was starting to sink in that she’d actually met two Avengers! Really actually met them! This was the coolest thing ever! She couldn’t wait to tell Ned!

Except she couldn’t tell Ned could she? Her good mood vanished like a popped balloon and tears stabbed her eyes again. For a moment it was all too much, not being able to tell Ned and having attacked the Avengers and the cold and the hunger and the group home and not being able to speak and uncle Ben and....but she didn’t think about that. She mustn’t think about that. She needed to look on the positive side. Ned’s apartment was always warm. That was a positive. She still had her best friend. That was a positive. There were lots of positives. She started walking again and repeated positives in her head until she could forget the negatives again.

\---------------

The Scarlet Witch was standing on a roof in the middle of Queens when she went to patrol that night. Penny almost retreated back to the group home, but four of her foster siblings had been engaged in a screaming fight when she left, and Penny didn’t want to be around when they inevitably turned to find someone to take their anger out on. Noises were loud enough when people weren’t actively screaming at her. It was harder not to think about things when one of those things was banging on her door and yelling slurs at her. She wasn’t going back to that house for a few hours.

She backtracked a bit anyway, and then looped around the Avenger, trying to keep a low profile until she put a couple of blocks between herself and the Avenger. She didn’t _think_ the Scarlet Witch had come to attack her back, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

She helped a few old people cross the road, and helped a shopkeeper unload crates from a van into his shop, and then felt a tingle down the back of her neck. Not much, but enough to let her know someone was watching her. Now she was watching out for it, her spidey-sense worked, even if not strongly. That did suggest that Scarlet Witch didn’t want to hurt her though, which boded well. Except for the fact that an Avenger was following her. Spider Woman wasn’t sure there was any way in which that boded well. She finished unloading the truck and webbed off as quickly as she could, going right to the edge of Queens, hoping the Scarlet Witch would give up on her. Instead the red in her peripheral vision indicated that the Scarlet Witch had no intention of doing so. She wondered for a moment if she could outrun the Avenger, and then gave it up. They were the _Avengers_ , they were some of the most powerful people on the planet, there was no way she could outrun one.

A wave of tiredness washed over her and she suddenly wished she’d stayed in the group home, or just gone for a walk or something. For an instant she wished she could take the costume off and become plain old Penny Parker again. Penny Parker could be almost invisible if she wanted. Spider Woman couldn’t just disappear. She swung to a stop on a roof top and sat down on the edge, swinging her legs out into thin air.

“You know I can tell when you’re ignoring me.”

“You know I can tell when you’re stalking me.” Spider Woman shot back, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to antagonise the Avenger but she was tired and hungry and, despite the exercise, the cold was biting at her and, despite her earlier thoughts, she really didn’t want to go back to the group home.

The Scarlet Witch snickered “I wouldn’t have to stalk you if you’d stayed and talked earlier. You know that stuff took three hours to break down enough to let us out?”

Spider Woman let a brief smirk of pride cross her lips, safe in the knowledge her mask hid it. “You could have called for help.”

“And explain to Stark that the new girl stuck us to a roof? No thanks. He gloats.”

Spider Woman didn’t answer. The cold was biting at her worse, and she was going to start shivering in a moment but she still wanted to curl up and sleep. But the only place she could sleep was full of screaming, and she missed uncle Ben so badly. Uncle Ben would have known what to do about the screaming and fighting. Uncle Ben would have managed to make peace. Uncle Ben would have made it all better. But Penny wasn’t supposed to think about uncle Ben, especially not now. She was supposed to be Spider Woman now.

The Scarlet Witch dropped down onto the roof next to her “We did actually want to talk to you earlier.”

“I’m not going to settle your bet for you.” Spider Woman snapped, irritated. She knew it wouldn’t do much good, but she kicked off the side of the building anyway, dropping down several floors before she grabbed the wall again. Two and a half months ago her heartbeat would have skyrocketed if she missed a step on the stairs, now she dropped three stories without any reaction. Although part of that might just have been pure exhaustion. It had been a long week. She released the wall and dropped again, and grabbed the wall another few stories down, and dropped again. The Scarlet Witch landed beside her with a flash of red.

“I thought we already went through this. You don’t ignore me and I won’t stalk you.”

“What do you want?” Spider Woman snapped, and she was tired and cold and she really didn’t want to deal with anything else today but the words still came out harsher than she meant them too. Scarlet Witch rocked back on her heels, and even though it was dark and she was wearing tinted goggles, she could see the shock and slight hurt on the Avengers face. Abruptly she remembered that the woman wasn’t all that much older than her, and hadn’t exactly had an easy life either. Her shoulders, held back in sudden anger, slumped “Sorry,” she offered, “I, I’m sorry.”

“Bad day?” Scarlet Witch asked tentatively.

_Bad year._ “Yeah”.

“I’m sorry. Can I help?”

The offer of help, from an absolute stranger, was a piece of kindness that, ironically, almost hurt. Most strangers, in Penny’s experience, weren’t kind. They were overworked and tired and hassled and didn’t have time for another foster kid. It had been a long time since she’d experienced this kind of kindness. “I doubt it.” she said, and even to her own ears her voice was utterly exhausted.

“Try me, I might be able to do more than you think.”

Could she stop panic attacks? Could she stop her foster siblings from being wounded and broken and lashing out? Could she stop the cold and the noise and the smells and the flashing lights? Could she bring uncle Ben back? But Penny didn’t think about that. “I doubt it.” she repeated, and her voice came out so quiet that she knew she was sliding back into Penny Parker. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to even talk soon. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make her voice work as Penny Parker. “I’m going...” she tried to say ‘home’ but her voice wouldn’t let the word pass her lips. The group home was just a house. It wasn’t home. “I’m going.” she said instead, and she gestured vaguely at the Scarlet Witch with one hand in what was meant to be a threat to web her up again, but probably just looked stupid.

But the Scarlet Witch just said “I’ll come back another day. I hope you feel better.”

Penny didn’t say anything, just shot a web up and swung away. The silence felt miserably familiar, like a suffocating pillow that was always over her head. She tried to find a positive, she tried and tried but she couldn’t think of one that actually felt positive. She only made it halfway back to the house before she collapsed on a rooftop, silent sobs shaking her entire body in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angsty ending. Things are rough for Penny right now. 
> 
> Comments make me happy :-)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The interns get a surprise visitor and Penny puts 2 and 2 together and makes 8

The house was silent when she got back, and Penny got four hours of sleep before one of her foster siblings hammered on the door. “Hey Penny, I’m meeting a friend across the city, you don’t mind doing my chores for me do you? Thanks, I owe you one.” His pounding footsteps away indicated he hadn’t hung around for Penny to open the door and shake her head. Penny internally groaned.

She’d have to do his chores now, or there would be trouble and shouting and Penny didn’t want that. Brandon wasn’t even one of the worse of her foster siblings, he was just opportunist. He would probably bring Penny back a chocolate bar or something, but chances were it would be shoplifted (she’d eat it anyway, calories were calories), and even if it wasn’t, Penny hated people taking advantage of her for her silence. It made her feel like she was weak.

She got up and did his chores along with her own anyway. Her day got better after that though. She found a pair of only slightly holey thermal socks in the garbage, and it only took half an hour to sew up all the holes, and then she could keep her feet warmer. And she got all her homework done in the morning and, in the afternoon, she had time to do a few chapters of the advanced math book she took out of the library, and with half of her foster siblings out of the house, it was almost quiet and peaceful. Brandon did bring her something back, only it was a pack of (definitely shoplifted given the price) protein bars, and despite feeling guilty that they were stolen, it was _almost_ worth being made to do his chores. There were enough calories in each bar to take the edge off her hunger on a non-internship day, and there were five of them. She stuffed them in her school bag to be certain none of her foster siblings would steal them while she was out. Her door only locked from the inside.

She skipped patrolling that night because she was still so tired, and the Scarlet Witch might be waiting for her outside, and she still didn’t know what the Avenger wanted and that scared her. Maybe if she didn’t appear for a few days she’d give up? But she couldn’t stop for a few days, crime wouldn’t wait around just because it wasn’t convenient for Spider Woman. But she could have one night.

She woke up four hours later tangled in her blankets with her heart racing a mile a minute and wished she’d patrolled. She rarely ever had nightmares after patrolling. Which meant she’d rarely ever had nightmares for the last couple of months, which somehow made this one all the worse. She barely made it to the bathroom to puke into the toilet, and one of her foster sisters shoved her head out her door to snarl at her to “Shut up! I thought mute kids were supposed to be quiet!”.

The comment burned, even though she knew her foster sister was cruel to everyone, and she probably didn’t know any better. But the comment was still harsh and vicious and made Penny feel like she was a problem. Then again, she had just puked in the middle of the night. Maybe she was a problem.

She flushed the loo and washed her mouth out and tried not to think about the nightmare she’d just had, or the fact that a year ago uncle Ben would have woken up and switched the lights on and they’d have had hot chocolate and watched star wars or stupid rom-coms until the nightmares hadn’t haunted her so much. She tried not to think about uncle Ben being gone, but it was getting harder. It had been over half a year, and her social worker said it would get easier but it didn’t feel like it was getting easier, it felt like it was getting harder.

She didn’t sleep any more that night, and she slept through two-thirds of double biology at school and the teacher told her to stay behind after class. She thought she was going to get detention but instead she got something much worse – the ‘are you ok and is everything ok at home’ talk. Penny had been given that talk so many times at this point she knew the three main variations of it from memory. It never got nicer to hear. She wrote on the board that everything was fine, it had just been noisy outside last night and she hadn’t been able to sleep. The teacher clearly didn’t believe her, but he let her go anyway. Penny had learned long ago that the majority of people would drop it and forget about it once they’d satisfied their consciences by trying.

Flash pulled her hair so hard at lunch she felt some of it leave her skull and tears ran down her face. Flash jeered gleefully and called her a wimp when he saw, and Ned made a move like he was going to hit him but Penny pulled him down. It would only make it worse. She tried to look on the positive side and decided that ‘at least he left them alone after that’ would have to do for a positive. It didn’t feel very positive. She made more web fluid in class though, and she didn’t get caught, which was a better positive, and their final class was homeroom, and she’d gotten all her homework done in class so she could nap through it, and that was another positive.

She took the subway across the city to Avengers Tower after school like she usually did on Mondays, and wished like she usually did that she could just swing across the city. It was faster, and it didn’t trap her in a loud, smelly, claustrophobic tube with hundreds of other people. But she couldn’t risk changing in broad daylight even if she could find a good alleyway, and she knew she mustn’t.

She’d just missed the subway leaving school, and by the time she emerged from the subway stop near Avengers Tower she was running late. She ought to go straight to the intern labs but she was starving hungry. She was always starving, but her tiredness today seemed to be making it worse, and the lure of food was too strong. She went to the catering floor first, and bought a four cheese pizza. She’d learned by this point that pizza was one of the best ways to get in calories, even if it didn’t have nearly as much nutritional value. She knew she ought to worry more about nutrition, but generally she was more focussed on just getting enough calories to ease the constant gnawing hunger in her belly.

By the time she got to the intern labs she was fifteen minutes late, and the last one there. She arrived to find that they’d already tested the barriers, which she’d actually completely forgotten about (probably somewhere around the time two Avengers snuck up on her). A guy was leaning over her crash barrier, tugging at it, and she guiltily remembered that she’d glued it to the bench. She dropped her school bag on the floor by the work bench to announce her presence, and was about to reach for the keyboard sitting on the side of the bench when the guy looking at her crash barrier straightened and she realised who it was.

Tony _fricking_ Stark was looking at the smushed together chunk of plyboard and glue she’d stuck to the workbench.

A mix of stunned shock and horror washed through her like an icy wave as Tony Stark’s eyes fastened on her and he jabbed a finger in her direction. “Are you Penny Parker? You look like Penny Parker. I want you. I can have her can’t I? It’s my company, I can have her. Sort out the paperwork. You, Penny, does this thing come off, I hope this comes off. How does it come off?”

Penny just gaped at him. She felt like her mind, usually so quick, was lagging several sentences behind. She was particularly caught on ‘I want you.’. She was rather worried what he wanted her _for_. Did he know? How could he know? Except.....she’d used her tweaked web-fluid on the crash barrier.

Frickity darn.

Tony Stark was still staring at her, and her brain was catching up enough to think to play dumb. “What?” she signed, only remembering a moment later that Tony Stark probably didn’t understand sign languages.

“I don’t know sign language kid. Speak with your hands, get this thing off the work bench. Come on, we don’t have all day. Stop staring at me Dr what’s your name, it’s my company. Clues in the name. She’s my intern, I’m taking her. Come on kid, don’t have all day. Talk with your hands.”

Penny snapped out of it and surged into motion. Tony Stark seemed to be taking her out of the room before he confronted her and she certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. She grabbed the chemicals she needed and hastily mixed them together, the feeling of everyone’s eyes on her making her neck tingle. She went to dump the contents of the beaker over her crash barrier, but Tony Stark reached out a hand to stop her and it was Tony Stark but she still didn’t want him touching her and she flinched before she could stop herself.

Tony Stark removed his hand at once “Ok, you talk with your hands, I’ll talk with my voice. Remove it so it still works, in one piece. We’re bringing it upstairs. Can you do that? Course you can do that, you made it.”

Penny wanted to ask what Tony Stark wanted with her thrown together project, but she didn’t dare stop to reach for her keyboard. Maybe he wanted to bring the evidence with him? She grabbed a pipette and spread the dissolver fluid around the edges of the bit she’d stuck to the bench and peeled it back with the other hand as the web-fluid dissolved.

“Great, good job. Bring the beaker too. Come on. No, I’ll get your bag, you’ll drop something. Bye you lot, have fun doing whatever it is your doing today. Enjoy the internship. Come on kid, in the elevator, Friday take us up to my lab.”

The elevator ride took about a minute. A minute to go from the low-down internship floors to _Tony Stark’s personal lab_ on floor 95. A minute to try to work out what just happened, and dread what was about to happen. The media, Penny observed to herself, did not properly describe quite what a whirlwind Tony Stark was. She felt like her head was still spinning.

The elevator doors opened with a ping, and Stark was moving before Penny could properly realise the doors were open. Dread was beginning to turn into panic. She should have stuck around and listened to what the Scarlet Witch wanted to talk about. She should have found out what they wanted from her.

“Come on, keep moving, yes I know it’s my lab, it’s very exciting but hurry up, we’ve got science to do, come on hurry up.”

Somehow, Penny managed to communicate to her legs that they needed to move, and got out of the elevator. The sight of the lab was almost enough to distract her from her panic, but then she remembered that it was Tony Stark’s lab and Tony Stark was Iron Man and Iron Man was an Avenger and she attacked the Avengers two days ago and what did the Avengers want with her???

“Don’t just stand there, put that on the bench, there’s a little space there, I’ll just move these and you can put the beaker down too. You can sign if you want, Friday will translate. You want some coffee? No, kids shouldn’t drink coffee, you want some juice? Butterfingers, get some juice. Not motor oil, juice. Don’t poison her. That’s hydrochloric acid, that’s even worse. Never mind, just sweep the floor. So kid, how’d you make it? Those are Spider Woman’s webs aren’t they? How’d you copy them? I can’t copy them, I tried. How’d you manage it?”

Penny was pretty sure she’d missed at least 50% of what Tony Stark was saying, but at least one word managed to make it into her brain and that was all that mattered. _Copy_. He wanted to know how she’d copied Spider Woman’s webs.

He didn’t know.

And for the first time in her life Penny was properly, deeply, whole-heartedly grateful that she couldn’t talk. Because if Penny Parker could talk then Tony Stark would probably have worked it out. But Penny Parker couldn’t talk and somehow Spider Woman could and somehow her secret was intact and Tony Stark _didn’t know_.

The relief was dizzying, and at the same time terrible. Because with disappearance of the immediate threat came the awareness of the adrenaline pounding through her body and the way her breaths were speeding up and her pulse was pounding and the threat was gone but there was a completely different threat now and Penny didn’t want to have a panic attack she didn’t want to have a panic attack she didn’t want to have a panic attack and she’d stopped breathing now and she needed to breathe and Tony Stark was staring at her and she needed to breathe she needed to breathe.

She yanked in a breath so sharp it was audible and somehow managed to sign “I got a sample.” because Tony Stark mustn’t work it out so she had to make sure but she still wasn’t really breathing and her pulse wouldn’t slow down and she was going to have a panic attack and she didn’t want to have a panic attack and she needed to breathe she needed to breathe she needed to breathe.

“Boss, Miss Parker says ‘I got a sample’ and appears to be having symptoms of a panic attack. Would you like me to play her your ‘Calm down’ album?”

Penny shook her head frantically. She wasn’t having a panic attack she wasn’t having a panic attack she wouldn’t let herself have a panic attack not again not again not again no no no no nonononononono she couldn’t breathe she couldn’t breathe she couldn’t breathe but she could hear her breaths and now she was breathing but her chest felt so tight and she was breathing too fast and she didn’t want to have a panic attack she didn’t want to have a panic attack she didn’t want to.....

She felt the cold before she registered anything else. Before she registered how close Tony Stark was or that he’d just grabbed her hand or that he’d just poured a cup full of ice-cubes into it, she felt the cold. It was so bitingly sharp and completely unexpected and it cut through her panic enough for her to make out Tony Stark asking “Tell me five things you can see? Sign them, five things, come on, you can do it. Smart kid like you, child’s play. Five things.”

One good thing about being mute was she didn’t need to gasp in enough breath to speak. She looked around wildly and managed to make the sign for “Screwdriver”. Dimly she registered Friday repeating it aloud.

“Good, that’s one. Four more.”

“Coffee mug.” Friday repeated it.

“Three more”

“Floor, bag, shoes” she signed, the words flowing from her eyes to her hands and just barely detouring through her brain. The sound of Friday repeating it seemed clearer, more present.

“Good, told you you could do it. Tell me four things you can hear?”

“Breaths. Rain. Sneeze. Computer.” the words were coming faster now, easier. Hearing things was easy. Even with ear plugs shoved deep into her ears (where they were hard to see) hearing was easy. Friday repeated it and she remembered that Friday was Tony Stark’s AI. She’d read a paper about him and his predecessor, Jarvis.

“Three things you can touch.” Tony Stark said, but Penny was already signing. She knew this exercise, she knew what came next. She could do this.

“Cold ice. Hard floor. Rough jeans.”

“Two things you can smell?”

“Coffee. Oil.”

“One thing you can taste?”

“Grease.” she signed.

“Huh where’s the grease from?” Tony Stark asked after Friday repeated it.

“Pizza. Cafeteria. Was hungry.” she signed.

“Good, what kind of pizza?”

“Four cheese.”

“Not pepperoni? Pepperoni’s my favourite. Guess everyone has their own favourite don’t they. ”

“Cheese is more filling. I was hungry.” she signed, and with each full sentence she managed she felt her panic recede. She was coming out of the panic attack. She was ok. She was going to be ok. She looked down at her cold fingers and found one hand still full of half-melted ice-cubes.

“Sorry about that. Here, put them in here. Stop hesitating, the coffee’s three days old, I’m not drinking it anyway. You can get off the floor you know. Can’t be comfortable. There’s a chair there ok, can you manage? It’s ok, I won’t touch you. I don’t like being touched without people asking either. Sorry for touching you earlier. I needed to give you the ice.”

“Why the ice?” she managed to sign.

“The surprise helps. My therapist taught me. Pep made me go. Let’s not talk about that. Sit down, Butterfingers will get you some juice. I’ll make sure it’s not motor oil. It’ll help. You’re going to be ok. Are you going to be ok?”

Penny nodded, because she was going to be. It was over now, it was over and it had been a lot shorter than she’d thought it would be, she’d have to remember that trick with the ice, and Tony Stark was a lot nicer than the media made him seem.

“Here’s your juice. Doesn’t look like motor oil. Maybe Butterfingers finally managed juice. Here, drink this. You’ll feel better.”

Penny took the offered cup and took a gulp, and then coughed violently and spat it out again. She just barely managed not to spray it on Tony Stark and spat it back into the cup instead.

“Salty” she managed to sign and Tony Stark groaned.

“Sorry about that. And sorry for whatever I did to trigger this? What did I do by the way? No, wait, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. I’m just sorry. Panic attacks are horrible. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” she signed, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault she’d jumped to conclusions, or that she had so much to hide, or that she was prone to panic attacks. “Thank you for helping Mr Tony Stark Sir.”

“Just Tony. And technically Dr, but it’s just Tony. I must have done something. You were fine downstairs. I can tell you’re lying. I’m sorry.”

Penny hesitated, then found the best reason she could think of that wouldn’t require her to explain Spider Woman and was still sort of true, and signed “I don’t like surprises.”

Mr Stark (there was no way she was thinking of him as just Tony) grimaced “Sorry again. Won’t do it again. No more surprises. I’ll give lots of warning next time. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know, it wasn’t your fault.” she signed again, and then kept signing before Friday could finish talking and Mr Stark could try to disagree. “I got a sample. That’s how I worked out how to make Spider Woman’s webs. I got a sample and tested it before it could dissolve.”

“Huh, how’d you manage that?”

“I live in Queens, I got lucky.”

“It wasn’t all luck. I couldn’t work it out. You might have had the advantage of a sample but that still required a lot of brains. You’re smart kid.”

Penny shrugged, “It wasn’t that hard, and it took me a week.” she admitted, even though she was kind of proud that she’d made something that Tony Stark couldn’t work out how to make.

“Boss, Miss Potts is in the lift and coming up to this floor. I thought I should warn you that she isn’t happy.”

“Uh-oh. Tell her I’m not here Friday.”

“I can’t do that Boss, you programmed me not to be able to lie to Miss Potts.”

“Damn it. I forgot about that. Why did I do that? No don’t answer that, I know why I did it. How long do I have Fri?”

“Three seconds Boss.” Friday announced, finishing barely a second before the door pinged open and Pepper fricking Potts (and she really needed to stop thinking of names like that) marched into the room, already talking.

“Tony please, please, please tell me Dr Stag is joking and you didn’t really kidnap an intern? Oh Tony...”

Penny shrank back into the chair as Miss Potts’s eyes fell on her, and wished she could turn invisible. Forget sticking to walls, she wanted to be able to disappear.

“I didn’t kidnap her, it’s my company, she’s my intern, I can bring her up here if I want to. C’mon Pep, you said to take an interest. I’m taking an interest.”

“Don’t you ‘C’mon Pep’ me. I said to take an interest, not barge into the intern labs, personally test their projects and then _kidnap one of them_.”

“I didn’t kidnap her, she’s right here.”

“She looks like you just used her as target practice! You didn’t use her for target practice did you?”

“Give me some credit Pepper, I didn’t mean to trigger a panic attack.”

“You _what?_ ”

Mr Stark cringed, guilt spreading across his face.

“I’m fine.” Penny signed. “It wasn’t his fault.”

Friday repeated it aloud, and Penny saw the moment Miss Potts realised that she couldn’t talk. She didn’t say anything, but Penny didn’t need her to say ‘Of all the interns you could have kidnapped, you had to choose the mute one, do you have any idea how bad publicity this is?’ aloud for her to hear it.

“He didn’t kidnap me, and just because I’m mute doesn’t make me bad publicity.” Penny signed before she could stop herself, her hand movements jerky. She froze in horror after she signed it, but she couldn’t take it back.

Miss Potts had the grace not to pretend she wasn’t thinking it, and to apologise, genuinely, which Penny actually admired. Not many adults would apologise genuinely to a teenager. Tony Stark had done it too. This was a very strange day.

“I’m sorry, Miss Parker is it? I shouldn’t have thought that, you’re right. And I’m sorry for talking about you like you weren’t here.”

Penny shrugged “Everyone does it.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it was fairly common. People seemed to think that just because she was mute she was also deaf. Although Miss Potts hadn’t known about that when she started talking to Mr Stark.

“That doesn’t mean they should. I’m very sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Penny signed, shrugging again.

A slightly awkward silence fell for a moment, and Mr Stark cleared his throat loudly, and then announced “Penny worked out Spider Woman’s web fluid. That’s why I kidnapped her. Not that I kidnapped her. That was just your word. I brought her up here. Sorry that caused trouble.”

Miss Potts looked over at her with newly considering eyes. Penny tried to look clever. She thought she probably looked a bit silly, but Miss Potts looked less scary when she wasn’t angry and that was encouraging. “There’s a process Tony, you can’t just take one of the interns from the labs. Stark Industries is responsible for them while they’re here. There’s paperwork involved.”

“I told Dr what’s his name to do it.”

“ _Before_ you take one of the interns. You have to do the paperwork first. And ask.” Miss Potts had an air of resignation about her, and Penny strongly suspected that this wasn’t out of character for Mr Stark.

Mr Stark chose that moment to turn to her “Do you want to be my intern? I promise we’ll do way cooler stuff than you were doing downstairs.”

Penny had signed yes before the full size of the offer sunk into her brain. Tony Stark had just asked her to be his intern. Tony Stark had just asked her to be his _personal_ intern. And she’d said yes. She was going to be _Tony_ _fricking_ _Stark’s personal intern_.

“You’re supposed to ask her supervisor as well, but I suppose that will do. I’ll do the paperwork. But you can’t change your mind once the paperworks done. Are you sure?”

Tony Stark nodded firmly “She’s smart. Aren’t you? You’ll keep up. I’m sure.”

Miss Potts nodded “Ok then, welcome to the higher floors Penny Parker. Don’t be afraid to tell him to back off if he gets too much. Let me know if you have any problems. Please don’t help him blow the tower up.”

Penny nodded, not quite sure what to say to that, and then Miss Potts was waving goodbye and disappearing back into the elevator.

And that was how she became Tony Stark’s personal intern.

\--------------

Mr Stark sent her ‘home’ after that. He said she should rest first, and they could science later, but not too much later so she should come back tomorrow. He still looked kind of guilty and Penny thought she should probably flesh her story out a bit before she showed him the web-fluid properly, so she let him send her away. He also insisted on having her driven back, and nothing she signed would change his mind, so she found herself in the back of a car being driven by a guy called Happy Hogan and still not quite sure what had happened in the last two hours.

The Prescotts were surprised to see her back so early, and there was a moment when Penny considered telling them what had happened, but neither of them could sign and she didn’t care enough about them knowing to write it down. She scribbled “Supervisor’s ill, it’s been rescheduled for tomorrow” on the whiteboard by the side of the room and went upstairs before either of them could ask more questions. She locked the door behind her and flopped onto the bed, staring up at the stained ceiling and trying to absorb what had happened.

Somehow, in the space of two hours, she’d become the personal intern to one of the smartest men on the entire planet. Not to mention to an Avenger!

Penny sat up sharply in bed, her brain finally catching up. She’d become personal intern to an Avenger. She, Spider Woman, vigilante with a secret identity, had become an intern to _the smartest Avenger_. What was she thinking??? How long until he worked it out?

Except Penny Parker couldn’t talk, and Spider Woman was a chatterbox. How could they be the same person? Even Penny couldn’t explain why should she couldn’t talk, or how Spider Woman could. How could someone else explain it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand Penny's met Tony!
> 
> Let me know what you think :-)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny starts her internship with Tony and has her first serious fight as Spider Woman.

The Scarlet Witch wasn’t around when she went to patrol. It wasn’t until she passed the area of Queens she had been waiting last time that Penny realised how much she’d been dreading it. She didn’t feel as tired as she’d been on Saturday, but she still couldn’t deal with anything else abnormal today. It was a quiet night in general, and she didn’t do much except give directions to some drunk teenagers and discretely watch from above to make sure they got there safely. She went back to the home earlier than usual and slept uneasily, but at least she didn’t have another nightmare.

Ned met her outside Midtown like he usually did, and when he asked how the internship had gone Penny had to slap her hand over his mouth to stop him from shouting when she answered. They were still signing as fast as they could make their cold hands move when the bell rang and they had to sprint across school to get to class before the second bell. Ned was still signing questions at her when lunch finished hours later, and Penny still didn’t have any more answers for him. She’d been worried for a moment, telling Ned about how she’d built her crash barrier, that Ned would work it out. Ned knew her better than anyone else in the world, and if anyone could work it out, it was Ned. But Ned also knew she hadn’t spoken a word since that Thursday four years ago, and Ned didn’t even question how she’d gotten a sample.

Because how could Penny Parker be Spider Woman? Penny Parker couldn’t talk.

Ned was still geeking out after the final bell when class let out and Penny needed to catch the subway to go to Avengers Tower. Tony Stark had said to come back today. She wondered if she could get another meal at the cafeteria, but her card was probably only coded to let her have food on internship days. She’d just have to manage. She ate one of the protein bars on the subway there and did her best not to think about the hunger. It was getting harder. Penny thought she might have forgotten what it felt like to be properly full. Even on internship days the full feeling only lasted an hour or so now, and it felt far more strange than the hunger did. She tried not to think about that. She tried not to think about a lot of things.

There wasn’t a button on the lift for floor 95. She’d never noticed before, because she’d never needed to go up that high, but the buttons only went up to 89. She tried to remember what Mr Stark had done the day before, but the memory was fuzzy with panic and she couldn’t remember. She pressed the wall of the elevator above the buttons, wondering if there was some kind of secret panel or something, but there was nothing.

“Good afternoon Miss Parker, you won’t find a button, there aren’t any for the Avengers’ floors. Would you like me to take you up to floor 95? Boss is expecting you.”

Penny jumped at the sound of Friday’s voice, and then nodded. “Yes please” she signed. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome Miss Parker.”

“Penny.” she signed, “Could you call me Penny? Please?”

“Of course, I have updated your preferences. I have also told Boss you are on your way up.”

“Thank you” Penny signed again.

Tony Stark’s personal lab was a lot more impressive when she wasn’t almost entirely occupied with panicking and trying not to panic. Now she could actually think clearly and look around, it was incredible.

There was science _everywhere_. Holograms floated in mid-air. Tools and half-built or dismantled machines lay all over the place. Three robots were meandering around on one side of the room. Screens were scattered across the entire lab space, and in the middle of it was a huge hologram of what Penny thought was a car engine, which Mr Stark was fiddling with, moving pieces around and drawing new ones in thin air. Penny itched to take a closer look, but she wasn’t sure if she’d break it if she did.

“You can look. I’ll tell you if you can’t do something.”

Penny let a smile spread across her face and she dumped her school bag by the side of the lab and walked all the way around the hologram, trying to work out what it was a hologram of, and why it was floating in the middle of the lab.

She was 98% sure her first guess was right, and it was a car engine. She was also 80% sure that it was broken. Partly because there had to be a reason it was out, but also because the wires didn’t look right. It took her a moment to work out why, and then she reached out to pull the hologram apart to expand it, like Mr Stark had.

“Yeah, that’s the problem, good spot. Told Pep you’d keep up. Problem is, how to fix it without redesigning the whole thing?”

Penny shrugged. The engine was a work of engineering art. Every piece fitted together perfectly, leaving barely any space between the parts of the engine, and most of the pieces had at least two purposes. Each piece showed meticulous calculations. It was an incredible piece of engineering, except for the small fact that it wouldn’t work. Moving any of the pieces surrounding the problematic wiring in order to give space for the correct wiring would create a chain reaction of moved components that would render the engine useless.

“What metal did you use?” Penny signed, wondering if a stronger and thinner metal could be substituted to create a little more space. It would make the car more expensive, but with a car like this the price would be astronomical anyway.

“Tried that, there isn’t another strong enough metal.”

Penny bit her lip, walking around the engine again. She wasn’t sure if this was a test, or if Mr Stark was genuinely stuck. If he was, there probably wasn’t anything she could think of that would work. Not if Mr Stark couldn’t work it out. She shrugged again. Mr Stark sighed loudly. “I got nothing either. Damn, we’ll have to redesign it. Don’t tell Pepper I swore in front of you.”

Penny let an amused smile spread across her face, and nodded her understanding, then blinked in surprise when Mr Stark started pulling the hologram apart, sending components flying away, and then grabbing them and putting them back together in a different way, stepping back to think every so often. Penny studied the engine as he built it, and went around collecting the pieces he would need next and sending them flying back to Mr Stark, and putting the odd one in place herself when she was sure there was only one place it would make sense to put it. It took twenty minutes to put the pieces together, and when he finished it only took the two of them four minutes to find a problem with it, and then Mr Stark pulled half of it apart again and they started putting it together again.

It was fun working with Mr Stark. He didn’t actually talk much while he was working, just hummed a little. He didn’t always leave her pieces where she put them, but he never said she was wrong either, and lots of times he put pieces where Penny thought (but wasn’t quite confident enough to place them) they should go. Penny spent more time watching than working, but she didn’t mind, and twice she managed to spot a problem Mr Stark missed before he could keep building. A few times Mr Stark changed the pieces. Putting in commands into a Stark Tablet or drawing them in the air until the computer worked it out.

Two and a half hours later Penny was looking at an engine that looked sort of similar but also completely different. She couldn’t find any issue with it. Theoretically at least, it would work. Mr Stark seemed to think the same thing, because he told Friday to “Send it back to R&D to be made up, tested, and complained about. Right, lets have a look at those webs then. I worked out the chemicals in it, and in that stuff you used to dissolve it, what do you call it? Eraser fluid?”

Penny shrugged, she didn’t have a name for it. It was just the counter to her web-fluid.

“Huh, ok, Eraser fluid it is then. Did you work out what goes in Spider Woman’s webs? This isn’t quite the same is it? It can’t be, it doesn’t dissolve.”

Penny nodded, feeling like this couldn’t risk her identity any more than she’d already risked it. She grabbed the nearest tablet (there had to be at least five lying around the lab) and wrote out the formula for her web-fluid and handed it to Mr Stark.

“This looks more like what she must use. Whoever designed this is a genius. Would love to talk to them. Maybe she’ll tell Wanda who designed it once she finally makes contact. Right, lets test it. It’ll need some kind of firing mechanism.”

Mr Stark grabbed some pieces from a box as he talked, assembling them into a sort of gun with a bottle on top. It looked like it would work, even if it was much bulkier than her web-shooters. “Yes I know, not what she uses, but it’ll do. Want to fire it kid?”

Penny shrugged, and accepted the gun that was handed to her. It was heavier than her web shooters too, and before the bite she’d probably have thought of it as heavy, but now she barely noticed the weight. She hesitated, not sure where to fire it in the crowded lab.

“Friday, target please”

“Of course Boss.” Friday said smoothly, and a piece of the wall extended and unfolded into a board as big as a double door with multiple target rings of different sizes on it. Penny aimed for the largest one and fired, hitting to the side of the bullseye. The weighting had thrown her off, and she flushed with embarrassment, but Mr Stark grinned. “Good shot. Looks exactly like Spider Woman’s webs. Looks like we’ve got a working formula. Well done.”

Penny flushed redder at the praise, which meant so much more when it was _Tony Stark_ giving it. She passed the gun back and watched him shoot it a few times, getting better each time. “You’re a better shot than you look. This weighs completely differently to a gun. Not that you’ve probably fired one of those. Have you fired a gun before?”

Penny shook her head.

“Didn’t think so. Would you like to?”

Penny shook her head again. She didn’t like guns. Guns killed uncle Ben. But Penny didn’t think about that.

“Probably best, Pep would shout at me if I let you play with guns. Right, lets see what else we can do with this.”

Half an hour later, after Mr Stark accidentally stuck his hand to the wall with the webs and Penny had made some more ‘Erasure fluid’ and released him, and promised not to tell anyone, her stomach growled so loudly it could be heard all the way across the lab. Penny turned brilliant shade of red. Her stomach had been growling all afternoon, a constant feeling in the background, but this was much louder, and she wanted to sink through the floor.

“Time for a break I think, Fri what’s the time.”

“It is almost 8pm Boss.”

Penny’s eyes blew wide open, and her stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. Her school-night curfew was in half an hour. She’d never been late back before. Never. The Prescotts had a three strikes rule. One strike meant an earlier curfew for a week, two meant being banned from whatever activity made you late. Penny didn’t know what three meant. She’d never overheard any of her foster siblings get to it. But one of her foster brothers had said it meant being kicked out, and he was a chronic liar but he didn’t always lie and Penny didn’t want to move. She didn’t like the Prescotts but she didn’t want to start over somewhere else. She felt sick. She could feel her heart beat speed up, and her breathing quickened. No, she couldn’t have a panic attack! If she had a panic attack there was no way she was getting back on time and she had to be back on time!

“Miss Parker, you appear to be having another panic attack.”

No! Nononononono. Cold! She needed cold. Cold helped last time. But when her fingers found the cold desk it didn’t do anything, and her breath was still speeding up and...

“What are 5 things you can see kid?”

Penny gulped, trying to calm her breathing, letting her eyes scan around. She could do this, she could stop the panic attack. “Hologram,” she signed “web, wrench, T-shirt, grease stain.”

“4 things you can hear?”

“Heart beat, wind, traffic, coughing.” Her breaths were coming easier, she was doing it, she was doing it.

“3 things you can smell.”

“Sweat, oil, chemicals. I can feel sticky webs, and cold workbench, and I can taste saliva.”

“Good job, well done. You’re a lot better at this than I was. What was the trigger? Can I stop it happening again?”

“I’m late.” Penny managed to sign. “My curfew’s in half an hour and I’m going to be late and they’re going to be mad and it’s my first strike and...” she managed to stop her hands before she could babble further, but she couldn’t stop them from shaking slightly as she forced them to her sides. She hadn’t known five years ago that you could babble in sign language, but it was not only possible, but Penny excelled at it.

“OK no biggie, Happy can take you home, it’ll be quicker than the subway. You’re going to be fine kid. Come on, lets grab some food on the way down, I’m not sending you off starving, Pep would kill me.”

Penny shook her head “No, I need to go, I _need_ to go.”

“Nope, plenty of time, come on, food. You can have hot dogs, you can take that with you. Into the elevator. Fri take us down.”

It was easier to go along with Mr Stark than to resist, and Penny let herself be swept along in the wake of Mr Stark’s constant whirlwind of activity. Her chest still felt tight but it was easing up with the thought of being on the way back to the home, and her stomach growled again in expectation of food and she couldn’t find it in herself to resist, even if she was embarrassed. She was so hungry. She was always so hungry.

Five minutes later she was somehow downstairs, holding a box of _four_ hot-dogs because Mr Stark had decided she should have plenty (Penny thought that four was way over the top even for a completely starved normal teenager given the size of each, but she wasn’t going to complain. Food was food, and Penny never had enough of it.) and being hustled into a car by a grumbling Happy.

“See you tomorrow kid!”

Penny juggled her bag and the box and the seat belt and then managed to sign out the window “Bye Mr Stark.”

“Call me Tony!” was shouted after her, but Penny pretended not to hear because there was no way she was calling Iron Man Tony.

She inhaled two of the hot dogs on the journey home and shoved the rest of the box in her bag to eat later. She couldn’t keep them for tomorrow because they would go off, but she could eat them after patrolling and go to bed with a full stomach for once. She made it back into the home with less than thirty seconds to spare and bolted into the house already signing apologies.

Mr Prescott just told her that she was cutting it close and to be more careful next time, but Penny didn’t care. She’d made it! She fled to her bedroom before Mr Prescott could decide to give her a strike anyway and collapsed on her bed panting. That had been close. Too close.

\-----------

Crowbars really hurt when they hit you in the head.

If Penny had ever stopped to think about that, she would of course have been able to tell you that without having to experience it. But, until it connected hard with the side of her head, Penny had never had reason to think about it, so it was a new discovery. Crowbars really, seriously hurt.

The world swam around her for a couple of seconds, during which time she took several hard kicks and realised she was on the floor. She jumped back up (which did not help with the swimmy-world feeling) and fired her web-shooters in someone’s face, which was entirely unplanned and surprisingly effective. He stumbled backwards away from her howling and clawing at his face, and Penny managed to kick the legs of one of the other guys out from under him, and punch the other in the stomach. Another few seconds of messy, blurry fighting later, and all three guys were webbed down.

Unfortunately, that still left Penny with a pounding head and what she was pretty sure was blood pouring down her face. And a torn mask. Which probably should be lower on the problems list than the blood. Yeah, she should definitely deal with the bleeding first. Penny wasn’t a doctor, but she was 99% certain that blood was supposed to stay inside her body. She should probably go back to the home and find some first aid stuff.

She shot a web at a roof and yanked, then shot another web and swung, and made the unpleasant discovery that swinging was significantly harder when really dizzy. She barely managed to aim the next web, and swung dangerously close to the corner of a building, and missed her next web and almost fell out of the sky. Penny had the, not entirely useful and entirely unpleasant, thought that the thug had probably just tried to kill her, because she didn’t think a non-spidery human would have survived that blow. She forgot about it a moment later though because she missed another web and really did fall out of the sky.

Another discovery, the ground really hurt when you hit it from far up. This really wasn’t Penny’s night. She picked herself up and wiped the blood out of her eyes and shot another web at a building. She wanted to walk back, she really wanted to walk back, but it was going to be very obvious where she lived if she suddenly started walking somewhere, clearly hurt, and then climbed up the wall of the group home. Speed was her friend, and looking like she normally did. Even if she had to fly a bit dizzy with blood in her eyes.

She managed make it back to the home without falling out of the sky again, which Penny considered a personal victory, especially as she only swung into two walls on the way. On the down side, Penny was pretty sure her bruises had bruises. She managed to get the first aid kit from downstairs without making too much noise, and she put pressure on the cut on her head using her balled up mask. She figured it was already soaked in blood, it couldn’t be much worse. She locked herself in the downstairs bathroom and hoped the noise wouldn’t be loud enough to wake anybody upstairs up.

The pain didn’t, as she’d hoped, fade away, and instead seemed to get worse, but she was still alive, and that was definitely a positive. Another positive was that the bleeding seemed to be slowing a little. She stuck her head under the tap to clean it and then managed to press the edges of the cut together and stick medical tape over it, and then bandaging over that, and the bandages didn’t instantly turn red, which was another positive. They seemed a little weak in the face of the throbbing pain in her head. She took half a packet of painkillers (she’d learned her first period that the normal two no longer worked) and hoped the pain would go away soon. She cleaned up the bathroom as best she could, washed her mask and top to get the blood out as best she could. She suspected they would still be blood-stained, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

She hadn’t thought to bring anything downstairs to change into, and she couldn’t bear the thought of running through the house half naked, so she put the wet top back on and ran up to change as quickly as she could. She hung her wet costume up, inhaled the other two hot dogs, and collapsed on her bed, hoping she didn’t have a dangerous concussion or something and she’d wake up.

\-----------

The bandages were wet with blood in the morning, but when she went to change them the cut had faded to a line of scabbed skin. Unfortunately, taking the bandages off tore the scab off as well, sending pain stabbing through her head again. A positive however was that, in comparison to last night, the pain was pretty mild. She waited for it to stop bleeding again, cleaned up, and tried to hide it as best she could with make-up, which wasn’t very effective, especially as the skin around it was mottled black and blue. It was the best she could do though, and she was already running late, so she just grabbed her bag (which she’d thankfully packed the night before, before she’d gone patrolling) and ran down to inhale as much food as she could get away with and then get the subway.

Ned choked on air when he saw her, but Penny told him she fell down the stairs and managed to distract him by talking about working with Mr Stark yesterday. Guilt twisted in her stomach for lying to Ned, but Spider Woman had to be a secret. Not least because she had no idea how to explain why Spider Woman could talk but Penny Parker couldn’t. She had no wish to go back to the endless “Why won’t you talk, there’s nothing wrong with you.” that doctors, teachers and classmates had thrown at her. Even Ned had clearly wanted to ask a couple of times (although not like that). Only uncle Ben had never pushed. The thought sent a sharp stab of white hot grief through her, and tears sprung to her eyes. She mustn’t think of that. She mustn’t break down.  
  


Penny had another go at covering up the bruising in the girls bathroom during lunch, but the result was barely better than the first. She shook her hair out over her face again and hoped Mr Stark wouldn’t look at her face too closely. One advantage of being mute, people tended to see her as disabled and felt uncomfortable staring at her.

Flash shoved her into the lockers again between classes, and the impact hurt so much tears welled up in her eyes. Her head might be the worst of the damage, but that just meant her healing focussed on that first, and left the bruises all over the rest of her to heal more slowly, and being slammed into a locker hurt enough that she almost turned round and hit Flash back. But using her enhanced strength against a school bully would be irresponsible, and if she stopped him he’d only turn on someone who couldn’t take it. Penny had taken it for years, she’d be fine. It wasn’t like it was the first time Flash had hurt her.

\---------

“Hey kid, come over here, you ever made a computer from parts? You’re going to tod— _what the fuck happened to you?_ ”

Penny winced, so much for not being noticed. “I’m fine.” she signed, “I fell down the stairs.”

She tried not to look nervous as Friday repeated it, tried not to look like she was internally begging Mr Stark not to realise she was lying. “Really? You look like you got hit in the face with something. Something heavy.”

This was worryingly accurate, and she had to steel herself not to take a step back. “I fell down the stairs.” she signed again, “I hit my head on the hand rail.”

“And they let you leave the hospital? No way, they’d have kept you in for observation. You’re lying kid.”

“I didn’t go to hospital” Penny signed.

It was evidently the wrong thing to say. “Your parents didn’t take you to hospital??”

Penny flinched, she couldn’t help it. The p-word hadn’t been fun even before uncle Ben was shot. But Penny didn’t think about that. “I left for school before they got up in the morning.” she excused instead.

“You didn’t tell them???” If possible Mr Stark’s voice was getting more horrified, and Penny had completely lost control of the situation.

“I didn’t want to worry them, I was fine, I went back to sleep and I was fine in the morning.”

“ _You went to sleep!?!”_

Penny really needed to find something to say that didn’t make it worse. Or better yet, stop talking. “I’m fine. Look, it’s just a bruise, it’s not that bad. It looks way worse than it is.”

It did not look worse than it was, in fact it looked a lot better than it had been, but Mr Stark mercifully didn’t know that.

“You got lucky kid. You can’t do that with a concussion.”

“I’m fine though.”

“You might not have been. Forget computers, we’re learning about concussions first.”

“I know what a concussion is.” Penny signed, slightly annoyed.

“Could have fooled me. No arguments, Friday, find some med-school video or something and play it.”

Penny raised her hands, thought better of it, and lowered them again. Given how badly things had been going a minute ago, this was probably the best she was going to get. She really needed to learn how to do make-up properly. Thankfully, Mr Stark seemed to believe her that it was worse than it looked. She really didn’t know what she’d do if he decided to take her to a hospital.

On the positive side, building a laptop computer with proper (not salvaged from the garbage) components was really, really cool. On the negative side, the documentary about concussions Friday played was frankly horrifying, and left Penny feeling like she was lucky to be alive. Mr Stark seemed to feel that her horror was a good thing, and looked relieved. It took her most of the computer building to lose the feeling of horror and remember she had advanced healing and was always going to be fine. On the even more positive side, Mr Stark said her laptop was good, and then said that her project now was to make it better, which meant she’d get to experiment with it and that was going to be really fun. She made a mental note to get a few more detailed books on computers out of the school library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me happy!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Penny makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to reiterate my warnings at the beginning that this fic could be triggering. Trigger warnings for grief, past sexual assault and present trauma especially.

Half her suit was stained rust-red with blood. Penny had been preparing herself for that eventuality, but it was still a blow to realise that it wasn’t going to be rescue-able. That meant she couldn’t go out patrolling until she found something to replace it. Even Penny, who really wanted to get out and help people, could admit that trying to help people while covered in dried blood wouldn’t go down well. At all. Which also meant more time spent dumpster diving, which had gotten much more gross and much less fun since acquiring an enhanced sense of smell.

To make things worse her dreams were haunted by the feel of hot breath and hard hands and things Penny tried so so so so hard not to think about but couldn’t always manage. She puked her guts up into the toilet twice, several ours apart, and her foster sister threatened to stab her if she woke her up again. Penny tried not to think about how it hadn’t sounded like an idle threat.

She went into school with much lighter bruising but hollowed out eyes, her hands still and limp at her sides. She tried to smile but Ned took one look at her and knew Penny was having one of ‘those’ days. ‘Those’ days were the worst days. They were the days when Penny flinched at the slightest sounds, when she would barely even talk with her hands, and was almost certain to have a panic attack. On ‘those’ days she couldn’t escape the haunting spectre of things that ought to stay in the past but never did. On ‘those’ days communicating felt like pulling impossibly heavy water from a well, hard and slow and exhausting. On ‘those’ days Penny felt like she was broken. Broken from the inside out and utterly beyond help. On ‘those’ days Penny didn’t care if she lived or died.

On ‘those’ days Penny scared herself.

She made it to lunchtime before she had a panic attack. She hid in the bathroom when she felt it coming, and she suffered through it and tried not to think how panic attacks weren’t as bad on ‘those’ days because she didn’t care if she died. She tried not to think about a lot of things, but it was next door to impossible on ‘those’ days. She could see in Ned’s eyes that he knew what had happened when she came out of the bathroom after twenty minutes, but he didn’t say anything and Penny didn’t either. Penny never said anything. Penny didn’t talk. Even talking with her hands was almost impossible on ‘those’ days.

‘ _What’s wrong darling? You got something against hugs? Stop squirming._ _’_

**No**! Penny didn’t think about that. She mustn’t think about that. She didn’t want to remember.

It wasn’t an internship day, and the positive was that Penny could curl up in her room and barricade the door with the cupboard and feel a tiny bit safer, but the negative was that there was nothing to distract her, and that felt much bigger than the positive. Even worse, non-internship days meant more hunger, and Penny was too tired and too wrung out to deal with it. She ate all four of her remaining protein bars and barely felt better, and knew she was going to regret it next non-internship day.

When night fell she couldn’t bear it anymore, and she pulled on a hoodie and tied it tight around her face so it was hard to see her, and tore through ten dumpsters across queens until she found a balaclava to replace her old one, and a ratty hoodie that was ripped in three places and stunk of dumpster but wasn’t recognisable as Penny Parker’s. She went back to change and then swung through Queens as fast as she could, even though her body still ached all over. She stopped two muggings and then ventured out of Queens for the first time to find more to do. She stopped four more muggings, a late-night shop hold-up (like the one uncle Ben died in, but Penny didn’t think about that) and practised mid-air flips with a recklessness she’d never show on a normal day.

But she got back at 2am and slept like the dead for almost four hours without a single dream.

\-----------

Life settled into a sort of pattern, internship days and non-internship days and patrolling every night. The Scarlet Witch reappeared a week after Penny got hit with the crowbar, and Penny had to take a night off patrolling, but she did two hundred push ups instead and fell asleep with aching muscles and a mind exhausted to silence. She worked herself up to asking one of the other girls in her year at Midtown to teach her to use make-up better. MJ was possibly not the best option for someone kind, but she was also the least likely to ask questions or tell anyone so the best choice. If MJ thought her request odd, she didn’t say.

The warm spell ended and the cold returned with a vicious force, and Penny found herself shaking all over with cold on every journey to and from school, or to the internship. Mr Stark continued to insist on Happy driving her back, but she hadn’t missed a curfew yet so Penny didn’t fight very hard on it. Especially because Mr Stark sometimes sent her home with more food too, even though she ate at the cafeteria before every internship session and told Mr Stark that.

Sometimes, when Penny was working on her projects, she could feel the back of her neck tingle in a way that she knew meant she was being watched, and she hoped Mr Stark didn’t suspect the bruises she hid under her long sleeves. She’d gotten better at concealing any visible bruises since MJ’s lesson, and she hadn’t had a panic attack (or near panic attack) at the tower again, but Mr Stark still seemed to watch her uncomfortably closely.

But Penny Parker didn’t talk, and Spider Woman did, so there was no way Mr Stark could work it out, right? Even Mr Stark couldn’t be that brilliant right? And working with Mr Stark was too awesome for Penny to even think about trying to get out of it. For the first time in her life she was never bored learning. For the first time in her life she was having to work hard and strive to keep up, and for the first time she felt like she was learning at an appropriate speed. It was exhilarating and addicting, like flying through the air on webs but with numbers and equations and chemicals and components. Mr Stark let her examine the broken hand of an Iron Man suit one evening and Ned was so excited when he heard that he was struck completely speechless. Penny would tease him but she hadn’t been much better.

The Scarlet Witch appeared five more times over three weeks, and Penny made herself go back to the home each night even though she ached to be patrolling. She stopped a delivery truck skidding on ice one night, and essentially getting hit by a truck hurt almost as much as the crowbar, but was also the coolest thing she’d done so far, and she’d possibly saved the drivers life. The Scarlet Witch appeared every night for the next week though, until Penny couldn’t bear not to patrol again, as much for her own sanity as for guilt over the good she could be doing. She determinedly ignored the woman for the first hour, and then dropped resignedly onto a rooftop and waited.

“You’re a difficult woman to track down Spider Woman.”

“Don’t you get tired of stalking people?”

“I’m not stalking you, can’t stalk someone you can’t find.” The Scarlet Witch sounded grumpy, and she tucked her fingers under her arms. Penny tried to feel sympathetic to the woman, but couldn’t. Penny felt the cold much more, and she had no thick gloves or warm boots, and her hoodie and mask still smelled faintly of dumpster, even four weeks and twelve washes later.

“Sucks to be you.” she said sourly. “What do you want?”

The Scarlet Witch hesitated, and then sat down next to her “Can we start over? I’m sorry we started with the bet. Sam likes to banter, but we both realised afterwards that maybe we came off flippant. There was a bet, but it wasn’t really serious. I’m sorry.”

Penny wanted to push off the building again and swing off, but the woman sounded so genuine, and it almost felt like someone other than Ned gave a flip about her, and Penny had learned to value kindness when it came. “Okay, I’m, I’m your friendly neighbourhood Spider Woman. Except not your neighbourhood, cause you live in the rich and safe part of the city and don’t need a Spider Woman. Not that you’d need my help anyway, cause you don’t. Um, I’m going to stop talking now.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then the Scarlet Witch burst out laughing. It was so unexpected that Penny found herself laughing with the woman, and it made her whole chest feel light. She hadn’t heard the sound of her own laughter in over four years.

“I’m Wanda Maximoff” the Scarlet Witch said after a moment. “I’m your friendly not-this-neighbourhood Avenger.”

Penny snorted, and took the hand that was held out to her, remembering not to squeeze too tightly as she shook it. “So what do the Avengers want with me?”

“To know that you’re ok mostly. And to know who you are, and why you’re doing this, but I don’t think you’re going to tell us that are you?”

“Why do you care?” Penny asked, and she hadn’t meant to ask it, and it came out sounding so rude, but she couldn’t help it. Nobody cared, unless it was their job to care (and even then, they only really ‘cared’ when she obviously needed it) or they were Ned.

The Scarlet Witch (she supposed she should think of her as Wanda, the codename seemed so strange when the Avenger was perched next to her on the roof like a normal person....or, well, a semi-normal person anyway) shrugged “Superheroing is a difficult job, and YouTube clips of you don’t suggest you have much training, if any at all. Plus, Tony and Cap think you’ve got a lot of potential. No training but you’re getting a lot done.”

Penny shrugged, looking out into the night “I’m just trying to help.”

“Is that why you do this? To help?”

Penny swallowed, trying not to think of hot breath and hard hands that choked off her scream for help. She tried not to think of desperate men with guns and the way uncle Ben had crumpled like his strings were cut. She tried not to think of help that had never come when she needed it. She tried not to think of being small and helpless and not even having a chance. She tried not to think about it, but it haunted her anyway. “When you can do the things I can, and you don’t,” she said slowly “then when the bad things happen, they happen because of you. I-I got these powers, and I can help. I can help the people who never had a chance. That’s, that’s why I do this.”

“You’re trying to fix the world. You shouldn’t, it’s too easy to lose yourself down that path, and with it lose everything.” Her voice was bitter, with an undercurrent of grief so raw it resonated right to Penny’s soul.

“I know I can’t fix the world.” Penny said, and her voice was bitter too. Bitter with things she didn’t think about, and wounds that would never close. “But if I can make it a tiny bit better, I want to. I have to. So somebody else doesn’t have to lose everything.”

And maybe, just maybe, she could save herself along the way.

Wanda looked at her (she was Wanda now, they’d shared too much in too few words to not be at least that friendly), and they shared some silent recognition of grief and pain. “I wish I could see the world like you do.” she admitted.

Penny looked out into the night and didn’t answer. She wasn’t so sure how she saw the world was good. She worked to help people, but she also worked to hold off her nightmares. She patrolled to protect the people she could, but deep in her soul, she wasn’t sure she believed they were worth saving.

She stood up eventually, too cold to stay still any longer “I have to go.”

“Ok. Are you going to avoid me for another month?”

Penny thought about it for an instant, but she already knew the answer “No.”

“Thanks.”

Penny hesitated, and then “Thanks for coming. I-I could do with another friend.”

The sudden smile on Wanda’s face made the words worth it. “So could I. I’ll see you next time.”

Penny waved, and launched herself off the roof, feeling better than she had in weeks.

\--------

“Do you know Spider Woman?”

The question was so unexpected that Penny dropped both the wrench and the screwdriver she was holding, panic widening her eyes.

“No” she signed, panicked

Friday didn’t repeat it aloud. The AI had stopped repeating simple signs aloud a few weeks ago, because Mr Stark seemed to recognise them now. Penny suspected the man was learning sign language, but she wasn’t sure. The thought made her feel warm inside anyway.

Mr Stark stood up fully from the engine they were taking apart (an actual engine, not a hologram). “Yes you do. Tip for you, never answer so fast, it makes it really obvious you’re lying.”

“How would I know Spider Woman?” she signed, trying to be logical, and trying not to panic. Mr Stark didn’t think she was Spider Woman, she was ok. Spider Woman talked, Penny Parker couldn’t. It was ok.

“I don’t know, but you designed that web-fluid she uses, didn’t you? I didn’t realise it straight away, didn’t realise quite how smart you are, but I’ve been pretty sure for a while. So, how’d you know her?”

Penny didn’t answer, deciding silence (metaphorically and literally) was her best option.

Mr Stark shrugged “Fine, don’t tell me. Wanda can’t get her to say anything about her gear either, although I’m pretty sure she’s stopped trying. Did you know your friend knew Wanda? Well she does. But Wanda says to give her space and not to ambush her and I want to talk to her. So, you’re going to take a message.”

Penny stood still for almost a minute, weighing up what she should do now. Finally, she decided she wasn’t going to convince him she didn’t know Spider Woman anyway, so it couldn’t do any harm. “What message?” she signed.

“I need to see whatever she uses to fire her webs. I’m making a suit for her, your friend needs an upgrade before she gets killed.”

It took every ounce of Penny’s self control to make her hands say “You’re making her a suit?!?!” rather than ‘You’re making me a suit?!?!’.

“Yeah, I’ve already started. But I need whatever she uses to shoot webs. And more information on what she needs. Which is where you come in. Are you going to take the message?”

Penny hesitated some more, but excitement won out over caution, and she grabbed her bag from where she’d left it at the side of the garage. She extracted her notebook and flipped to the page with the latest version of her web-shooters and held it out to Mr Stark.

“Huh, interesting design. You design these? These are pretty good. Button and a wrist flick, explains that odd hand thing she does. So, you her tech guy-girl then?”

Penny shrugged, admitting to nothing, even if the notebook she’d just handed him was as good as a confession really.

“Fine, keep your secrets. Want to help make the suit?”

Penny gaped at him for a moment, and then nodded rapidly. Did she want to help make her own suit? Of course she did!

“Great, we can start next session. Ask Spider Woman what she wants in it. And pass me that wrench.”

Penny passed the wrench and tried to tame her excitement down to merely buzzed. She wasn’t sure how successful she was.

\----------

Meeting Natasha Romanoff was possibly more stressful than getting hit in the head with a crowbar.

Penny hadn’t known she was coming. If she had known, she would definitely not have gone patrolling that evening. She would have stayed nice and safe in the group home and not exposed herself to potential ambush by a _superspy who_ _might_ _work out her secret identity_.

But Spider Woman could talk, and Penny Parker couldn’t and that would have to be enough because she hadn’t known the Black Widow was coming and so she hadn’t stayed at the home.

Wanda was trying to teach her to fight. Penny said trying because it was fairly obvious that Wanda was only just learning herself, and while the techniques she showed Penny were helpful, it was obvious that Wanda couldn’t stand up to her in hand to hand fighting. Untrained or not Penny still had enhanced speed and strength, and she was a good deal more flexible than Wanda.

So they hadn’t really been doing any sparring, so all they’d really been doing were going through Wanda’s drills on a rooftop and laughing about how silly they looked, before giving it up to sit down and chat. Chatting was more fun anyway, as long as they moved every so often so that Penny could help her reduced thermoregulation keep her warm. They talked about all kinds of things. The weather, politics, the news, the relative merits of American street food compared to Sokovian…. Sometimes they talked about the Avengers, and Wanda’s training, and once they talked about Pietro’s death, and how Wanda felt like she was missing part of herself.

They didn’t often talk about Penny, and when they did, Penny never gave much detail about her life. She made sure to make references to work, rather than school, and was careful to never mention homework. She was hoping Wanda would draw the conclusion that she was her age or a little older, but she wasn’t sure how successful she was. She didn’t like lying to her friend. But Spider Woman had to be separate from Penny Parker, so she had to lie.

A lot of their conversations were broken up by Penny hearing someone who needed help and webbing off to give it. Wanda tended to follow discretely at a distance (nobody knew Spider Woman and Scarlet Witch were friends, and Wanda wanted it to stay that way; she thought it would make Spider Woman a target if people knew) but rarely intervened unless it was clear Spider Woman needed help. Her interventions were only little flashes of red and flung pebbles but, on the days (once or twice a week) Wanda was there, it left Penny with less injuries to hide the next day.

On this particular night though, it was fairly quiet, and Wanda was attempting to teach her how to fight again, and Penny was focussed on the combination of punches and kicks that Wanda was trying to teach her. It took her a moment to notice the tingle down her neck that indicated that someone was watching her, not with intent to harm, but with purpose. She spun around and almost jumped out of her skin to find the Black Widow sitting cross legged on the edge of the roof, watching them.

Frickity darn the woman was quiet.

“Wanda’s teaching you bad habits. You’re telegraphing all your moves.” The woman observed, and Wanda yelped with shock and spun around.

“ _Nat!_ Don’t sneak up on us! What are you doing here?”

“You were supposed to invite her back to the tower.”

“I did invite her, weeks ago.” Wanda said defensively, but she was shuffling in place guiltily, and glancing between her mentor and Penny nervously.

“She did. I refused.” Penny said, not wanting to get her friend in trouble.

“She wasn’t supposed to _let_ you refuse.” The Black Widow said archly. “We can’t just have random people running around the streets playing superhero. We need to know who you are.”

“I’m Spider Woman.”

“We need your real name.”

“Mary Poppins.”

The glare the Black Widow sent her was so withering Penny took several rapid steps back, not entirely sure the Avenger wasn’t going to attack her.

“Leave her alone Nat. She has good reasons to keep her identity secret.”  
  


“And those reasons are?”

“Good?” Wanda offered, a little less confidently.

Penny took another step back when the Black Widow turned to her again, intending to retreat off the roof. Unlike Wanda, the Black Widow couldn’t fly. “Don’t even _think_ about it.”

“Too late.” Penny sassed, and then snapped her mouth closed. Sassing the Black Widow could not possibly be a good idea.

The Black Widow rolled her eyes “No wonder you two get on so well.” She grumbled. “You can’t keep doing this. Not only are some very powerful people getting annoyed, but sooner or later you’re going to get into something you can’t handle, and then you’re going to need backup.”

“I’ve managed perfectly fine until now.” Penny lied, deciding that the crowbar incident didn’t count. Or the injuries she’d gotten from the skidding truck. Or cracking her ribs that one time. She took another step backwards towards the edge of the roof.

“Don’t you _dare_.” The Black Widow said, in a voice so threatening Penny froze instantly in place. The Avenger crooked a finger at her, and Penny gulped audibly as she obeyed, not quite daring not to.

“Do your stance again. The one Wanda was failing to teach you.”

“Hey!” Wanda protested indignantly but fell silent when a look was tossed her way. Penny shot a nervous look at her friend but did as she was told. The Black Widow stepped closer and pushed, prodded and pulled at various parts of her body until she was satisfied.

“Punch me.”

“Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Penny said.

“You’re not going to hurt me.”

“I’m stronger than I look.”

The Black Widow snorted, “That won’t matter. Punch me.”

Penny swung a fist carefully towards the Black Widow, holding back as much as she could. Except the Black Widow wasn’t where she was when Penny had started moving, and there was a sudden blur of movement and Penny found herself looking up at the sky. “Ow.” She complained.

“See why you need help?”

“That was mean.”

“That was honest. Something Wanda is too nice to be.”

“I think I like Wanda better.”

“That’s ok, I like Wanda better than myself too.”

Wanda made a noise of protest from somewhere across the roof, and Penny took the opportunity to roll sideways and spring to her feet, bolting for the side of the roof, only to hit the rooftop again, this time pinned with her back to the rooftop and her hands above her head.

She freaked.

The world blurred around her and for several tortured moments Penny forgot where she was, forgot when she was. She screamed, wild, desperate and panicked, and thrashed.

She fell off the roof before she realised she’d been released or that she was scrambling backwards. She fell in a blur of panic and fear and disorientation and flailed her hands out to try to catch something, completely forgetting about her web-shooters. Her left hand managed to grab and stick to the wall but her momentum was too strong and she howled as her shoulder dislocated. She managed to get her right hand onto the wall and her scrabbling feet stuck but her left arm hung limp and useless and agonising at her side.

Red light wrapped around her, and Wanda was suddenly hovering next to her, whispering reassurance and telling her to let go of the wall. Penny went limp into the hold of Wanda’s power and let her lift her back up to the roof, trying to breathe through the screaming panic in her mind. Trying so so so so hard not to think of hot breath and hard hands and things she mustn’t think about.

She dimly registered the Black Widow apologising, and telling her she was going to relocate her shoulder, and to take deep breaths, and she managed not to scream when her shoulder went back in, even if her mask was growing damp with her tears. The pain was almost welcome, a jarring difference to the phantom pain in her neck that accompanied the memory that had been triggered, and Penny let it tether her to the world, to the here and now and somehow, somehow she wasn’t having a panic attack.

Maybe she could make panic attacks something Penny Parker had? Maybe she could manage that. Maybe she’d be ok.

The Black Widow’s eyes were far too knowing when she released her shoulder and sat back, and Penny looked down at the roof to avoid them.

“I’m sorry.” The Black Widow apologised again, the words genuine.

“Sorry for running.” Penny offered back, because it took two to make an argument, even if it hadn’t really been an argument.

“You can’t keep going like this.” The Black Widow said, but the words were more gentle now.

“I have to.” Penny said. She couldn’t stop, not when it would mean letting bad things happen that she could have stopped. “I have to.”

“You can’t, sooner or later, you won’t be able to keep this up.”

Penny tried to find an argument against that, but she remembered the crowbar hitting her, and the bruises all over her after stopping the truck, and the cold and the hunger and bruises she always carried and she couldn’t find an argument. “I have to.” She repeated, the words feeble in the face of the truth she didn’t want to face.

The Black Widow huffed. “Are you always this stubborn?”

“Only when it matters.” Penny said.

“Yes, she is.”

“Hey!” Penny protested weakly.

“You avoided me for a month before you came to talk.”

Penny didn’t have a retort for that, so she fell silent, instead gingerly exploring her shoulder with her fingers.

“Leave that alone, poking it won’t help it heal. You’re going to need to walk home.”

“It’s ok, I can swing with one hand.”

There was a pause and then Black Widow groaned “You’re as reckless as Wanda.”

“Hey!”

“Uh, thanks?”

“Wasn’t a compliment. Look, I’ll do you a deal. You’re going to come to Avenger’s Tower every Saturday afternoon and you’re going to report everything you’ve done during the week, and you’re going to train with us. Then at least we can say we are providing oversight and not just leaving you to do what you like because we made friends with you. In exchange, you can keep your identity secret. For now.”

Wanda shuffled a little guiltily off at the side, and Penny gaped at the Black Widow. “You want me to come train with the Avengers? Why?”

“Because people like you, people who help because they can, and refuse to give in, they’re the kind of people the Avengers need. Not now obviously, you have no training. But maybe someday. So, do we have a deal?”

Penny, who had gotten a little stuck on the part where the Black Widow said she was the kind of person the Avengers needed, just gaped. Had she just been invited to _join_ the Avengers? She thought her brain might have just short-circuited.

“Hey, snap out of it! Do we have a deal?”

“Um, I get to keep my identity secret?” Penny checked.

“For now.”

“Forever.” Penny argued.

“I can’t promise that. This is the best you’re going to get. Deal or no deal?”

“Deal.” Penny said, hoping she wouldn’t live to regret it.

“Good. Right, Wanda and I are going to sit here for an hour so that you can _walk_ back to wherever you live. Do _not_ swing. I am not explaining to Steve why you fell out of the sky and broke your neck right after we finally got you to agree to come in. We won’t follow you.”

Penny hesitated, but she trusted Wanda even if she didn’t trust Black Widow yet, so she nodded her understanding. “Could you give me a lift to the ground?” she asked Wanda.

“Sure. Sorry for Nat ambushing you. I’d have warned you if I knew she was coming.”

“Precisely why I didn’t tell you.”

“She was only protecting her friend.” Penny retorted, because if anyone asked her to not tell Ned someone was going to ambush him, she’d laugh in their face.

“Which is also why I didn’t tell her.” Black Widow said “So she wouldn’t have to choose.”

“Oh.” Penny said, not sure how she felt about that. Wanda seemed to be as thrown as she was but shook it off.

“Ready?”

“Yep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Wanda and Natasha enter! Also, note on Wanda's age. I wrote this before WandaVision came out, and a quick search for her age gave me everything from 16-30, so I made it up! Wanda is 18 in this. She's technically an adult, but she's a very young traumatised adult. 
> 
> Comments make me happy :-)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Penny has an altercation with some muggers and it has unforeseen consequences

Penny wasn’t sure when Mr Stark had started leaving cereal bars or other storable snacks in her bag and hoodie pockets, but she was grateful for it. The prospect of food waiting for her in her bag at home was the only thing keeping tears from spilling down her face that Thursday. Thursday was a non-internship day, and she was so hungry it hurt to breathe. She wasn’t sure if it was the tiredness, the late cold snap, or the agony in her wrist and ribs, but she just couldn’t deal with the hunger this evening.

She’d gone to break up a mugging, like she had dozens of times before, but this time the ‘victim’ had turned round and punched her in the gut, and then three more guys had poured out of a doorway and Penny had found herself fighting six people at once. Evidently, she’d upset a few criminals.

Penny had lost the fight. There was no other way to describe it. She’d taken a crowbar to the ribs, and been grabbed by the wrist when she doubled over, then swung by that wrist into a wall, and been hit by the crowbar again. Through the tearing agony, she’d managed to kick the guy holding her, and then climbed up the wall and run away. She’d lost. And she had the broken ribs to prove it.

And she was hungry. She was so, so, so hungry. Her healing burned up more energy, and it had already had to deal with her dislocated shoulder from yesterday. Even with eating two extra meals on internship days, and having the snacks for non-internship days, her stomach always seemed to be screaming with pain now. She was so hungry, she was so, so hungry. But there was food at the house. Mr Stark had given her food she could eat later. That was a positive. She just had to make it back. She just had to look at the positives. It was going to be ok. She just had to make it back and eat, and there would be two extra meals tomorrow and she’d be ok.

She would. She would.

She had to be.

\--------------

Penny didn’t mean to fight with Ned.

Penny and Ned hadn’t had a serious fight in years, maybe ever, and maybe they were overdue and maybe Penny should have expected Ned to notice something but she didn’t and it hit her out of nowhere.

One moment she’d been signing about robotics club with Ned and the next Ned was yanking in a horrified breath, grabbing her hand and pushing up her sleeve.

Penny had forgotten she’d hurt her wrist. Her ribs hurt so much that she barely even noticed her wrist and it wasn’t until her sleeve was properly out of the way that Penny even noticed the mottled black and blue bruises. The bruises that showed the unmistakable imprint of a hand around her right wrist.

Penny yanked her arm back, pulling her sleeve over her hand, desperately trying to think of an excuse. “I fell down the stairs, one of my foster brothers caught me.” She signed eventually, but Ned was shaking his head, his face full of horrified disbelief.

“Who hurt you?” he asked, his voice a horrified whisper but the words felt like shouting to Penny.

“Nobody” she signed, but her hands were shaking and she knew the lie wouldn’t work. “It was an accident.”

And Ned had always swallowed her lies about her bruises before but this was just too obvious and she knew it was one lie too many and she was terrified Ned was going to tell an adult and he mustn’t so she had to make him believe her. But Ned didn’t believe her and he was starting to ask about all the other bruises and he wanted to know if her foster parents were hurting her and he didn’t believe her that they weren’t. And then, like an inevitable result that Penny had somehow never seen coming, they were fighting. They were fighting about Penny lying and they were fighting about Ned wanting to tell someone and they were fighting about Penny getting medical attention and then they were just plain fighting.

They were fighting and fighting and they’d never fought like this before and Ned was going to tell someone and she couldn’t risk that and she couldn’t tell him and she felt so guilty and lost and desperate and Penny was signing awful things before she could stop herself. She signed that Ned just wanted to ruin her chance of a family, that he wanted her to have no-one but him and wanted to force her away from her family. She signed that she’d never ever speak to him again if he told someone.

And Ned said horrible things in return, because they were angry and worried and they were teenagers, but what Penny said was worse. She found every little insecurity she knew Ned held and she threw it in his face. The fight ended with Ned saying he never wanted to speak to her again anyway and storming off, and Penny wasn’t sure he’d calm down and not mean it later. He sounded like he really meant it now. And he’d turned away after he said it. Ned never turned away. He watched her so she could talk with her hands and not be forced speechless. Ned never turned away.

Until now.

She hadn’t meant to fight with Ned. She hadn’t meant to lie to him so often or collapse the house of cards she’d built. She hadn’t meant to hurt Ned, or push him away, but she had and now she didn’t think she could go back. She didn’t think Ned wanted her to go back.

\-------

Penny cried on the subway to Avenger’s Tower. She pulled her hood over her face and curled into the corner where nobody could see the tears she couldn’t stop from running down her face. She almost missed her stop and had to run off with her face still damp with tears. She ducked into the bathroom once she got off the train and scrubbed her face dry and put hair bands around her sleeves to stop them from riding up. It created a ring of throbbing pain around her right wrist but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t let anyone else see.

She felt a little better after eating, and a lot better once she could immerse herself in science with Mr Stark. Helping design and build her own suit was beyond cool, even if she had to be extra careful not to slip up and say too much. It was easier not to think about things when there was science and engineering and calculations to do. It was like the whole rest of the world stopped existing while she worked with Mr Stark, and she could completely lose herself in the science for hours.

It seemed the world hated her today though, because before two hours passed Friday said “Boss, Mr Rogers would like me to tell you ‘Avengers Assemble’.”

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it was still a blow. Avengers Assemble meant that Mr Stark had to go, which meant sciencing was over for the day. It was especially a blow because Penny needed the distraction now more than ever, and it was a Friday, so the next internship day wasn’t until Monday.

Mr Stark swore, and then looked at her guiltily and told her not to repeat it. It was sort of cute that Mr Stark thought she didn’t hear lots worse than that in the halls at school.

“I’ll see you on Monday.” She signed at Mr Stark, whose face fell further.

“You may wish to stay here Penny as the threat appears to be heading for the tower. It would be safer to remain indoors.”

Penny shrugged, “I’ll be fine.” she signed, thinking of the suit shoved at the bottom of her bag.

“Nope, you’re staying here. Actually no, Fri, take her to Pep’s office and activate siege protocol. Come on, into the elevator, no arguments, I’m not leaving until you go.”

Mr Stark was a difficult man to refuse on the best of days, especially when he had a habit of not waiting for you to answer before he did something, and today was no exception. Penny found herself in the elevator and going down to floor 89 before she could even think to argue.

The elevator opened into a big office with a massive desk and clear windows giving a beautiful view of the New York skyline, currently slightly marred by the three giant blue cockroaches flying around. Penny was suddenly less annoyed that she couldn’t grab her suit and join the fight. That did not look like a job for your friendly neighbourhood Spider Woman.

A throat being cleared behind her made her spin round to see Pepper Potts entering her office (because apparently the elevator opened into the actual office) and looking at her questioningly. Penny raised her hands, then dropped them again helplessly. She doubted Miss Potts knew sign language, and she didn’t know if Friday was in here like he was in the lab and garage. Instead she just pointed outside at the cockroaches and hoped Miss Potts could guess.

Miss Potts’s eyes widened, and then she suddenly spun around and tried to open her office door again, only to swear (under her breath, but Penny had enhanced hearing) when it didn’t open. Before Penny could wonder why it wouldn’t open, metal walls started to fall from the ceiling, meeting another set rising from the floor. So that was what ‘siege protocol’ was.

“Friday! Let us out of here!”

“I’m sorry, Boss has activated siege protocol. I cannot let either of you out until it is deactivated, no matter how urgent your errand.”

From the expression on Miss Potts’s face, she’d already known that and hadn’t appreciated being told it again. Penny nervously watched to see what Miss Potts would do next, but the CEO just took a deep breath and let the anger fade off her face. “I hate it when Tony does this.” She admitted. “I’m sorry you’re stuck here too, although it probably is safer than out there at the moment. Would you like a drink? Friday can translate if you sign.”

Penny nodded, because there didn’t seem much else to do, and Miss Potts opened a mini-fridge set into the wall and offered her a bottle of coke. Penny crossed the room to take it, and sipped from it, looking nervously at her watch. Hesitantly she signed “Miss Potts? How long are we likely to be stuck here?”

“Call me Pepper, and I really don’t know I’m afraid. Until Tony gets back. Only he can deactivate the protocol, unless it becomes more dangerous to stay in here than to leave.”

Penny nodded her understanding and tried not to panic. There were only two hours before she needed to leave if she wanted to be back in time for curfew. She’d already had one strike, even though she hadn’t actually been late, because Mrs Prescott said she was ‘so often almost late you might as well be late’. Two strikes and she wouldn’t be allowed to do the internship anymore. Penny didn’t think she could cope without the internship. She didn’t think she’d cope if the chance to forget everything for a few hours was taken away.

“Is there somewhere you need to be?” Miss Potts asked, and Penny realised she wasn’t hiding her almost-panic as well as she hoped.

“I have a curfew in two and a half hours.” She signed and was proud that her hands didn’t shake while she did it.

“I see, would you like to call your guardians? Or uh, text them.”

Penny blinked in surprise at the word ‘guardian’, although it made sense that she’d know. Miss Potts had said she’d do the paperwork for Mr Stark when Penny first became his intern. That probably meant she’d seen Penny’s paperwork. Penny hesitated. She was constantly worried that the Prescotts would send her to another group home if she was too much trouble, and she tried never to be a bother. They hadn’t wanted to take her to begin with, because they were already overworked, but the only other place smaller than the mass group home time had been a group home for kids who had just come out of juvie, and her social worker had convinced them to take her ‘just for a while’. A while had turned into longer, but Penny was never sure if she was going to be moved. She tried not to think about it most of the time.

There was no choice but to text them though, not unless she wanted to get into trouble, which would be worse. She reached for her back pocket, where she usually left her phone, only to find it empty, and realised with a sinking feeling that she’d left it in her bag, which was in the lab upstairs. She couldn’t text the Prescotts. She couldn’t tell the Prescotts she was going to be late. She was going to get a second strike and lose the internship.

Miss Potts was still looking at her expectantly, and she forced her hands to sign “I don’t have my phone.” She didn’t know the number off by heart either, even though she was supposed to. She was going to get into so much trouble.

“Oh, of course, your stuff is upstairs. Never mind, we must have an emergency number for you on file. I’ll call. Friday?”

Relief washed through her like a sudden flood, followed by embarrassment as Penny realised she should really have thought of that. Miss Potts pulled out her phone and typed the numbers in as Friday said them, and Penny didn’t even try not to eavesdrop on the conversation as Miss Potts explained the situation.

Mr Prescott thanked Miss Potts for telling him, and asked that Penny send them a text when she got back to her phone, and then said goodbye in the hurried way that Penny was familiar with. It wasn’t really his fault he was so busy, and he hadn’t really wanted to take another kid into the group home. Penny tried not to think about it. Miss Potts wasn’t used to it though, and she frowned when she pulled the phone away from her ear, and eyed Penny in a way she couldn’t quite decipher, her eyes flicking for an instant to the hair bands around her sleeves in a way that made Penny’s heart beat more quickly. There was no way she could know. Could she?

“Your foster dad says he understands, and would like you to text him when you can.”

Penny nodded, and pretended she didn’t already know this. A human wouldn’t have been able to hear a voice through the phone, not from the distance she was standing. She signed thank you, and then made her way to the cluster of chairs and sofa’s at the side of the office. It was probably for entertaining business partners or something, but there was no-where else to sit except at the desk, and Penny didn’t want to distract Miss Potts from getting work done. She sat down on one of the sofas carefully, trying not to jostle her ribs too much. They felt a lot better since last night, but still didn’t feel anything like healed. Footsteps behind her made her look up in surprise, to see Miss Potts coming over. The CEO sat down on the other end of the sofa and toed off her heels, letting out a little sigh of relief.

“You don’t need to keep me company, I don’t want to keep you from your work.” she signed, letting Friday translate for her.

“You’re not. There was a meeting I was about to go to, but I’ve already rescheduled it, and I can never concentrate on paperwork while Tony’s out there.” Miss Potts gestured at the window, an edge of worry to her voice. Penny wondered with a sudden pang what it would be like to have someone who worried about her when she went out. She wasn’t sure whether she’d like it or hate it. She wondered if Ned would worry if he knew, but then she remembered that Ned hated her now. She didn’t want to think about that.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.” she signed, because Iron Man was an Avenger and the Avengers always came out on top. Even if she was worried herself, because the Avengers always came out on top but they also often came out hurt, and Penny didn’t want Mr Stark or Wanda to get hurt. Or any of the other Avengers obviously, but especially them.

“I know,” Miss Potts said “but I can’t help worrying anyway.”

Penny didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t reply. The pause lengthened into silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

“You’re good for him you know.” Miss Potts said after a while, and Penny looked up in confusion.

“For who?” she signed.

“Tony. He’s missed having a scientist around who can keep up with him. He gets edgy when he doesn’t have someone to work with for too long.”

“But doesn’t he have a whole building full of scientists he could work with?” Penny asked, confused.

Miss Potts shook her head “There are only a few who can keep up with Tony on a good day, and none of them are good at fitting in with his working style. Tony can be, ah, difficult sometimes, which I’m sure you’ve realised.”

Penny shrugged because she had realised but she didn’t really mind. She could be difficult sometimes too. Instead she wondered how it could be that Stark Industries only had a few scientists who could keep up with Mr Stark “I thought Stark Industries employed the best?” she signed.

“We do.” Miss Potts answered.

“Then why can’t they keep up?”

Miss Potts shrugged “It takes more than knowledge to keep up with Tony, it takes being an actual genius, and an especially brilliant one at that.”

“I’m not a genius and I can keep up.” Penny pointed out.

Miss Potts raised her eyebrows “You _are_ a genius. Tony talks about it all the time.”

“Mr Stark talks about me?” Penny signed, feeling suddenly giddy and not sure why.

“Of course, he cares about you, even if he doesn’t know how to show it.”

Penny thought abruptly of all the meals and snacks that had found their way to her, and the way he always got Happy to drive her home to be sure that she wouldn’t miss curfew. She thought about how it was always really warm in the lab now, and she never felt like shivering in there. She thought about how Mr Stark would ask how school was going, and how she was, and showed genuine interest in her answers, and the way he rarely needed Friday to translate anything anymore, and how sometimes he’d sign back. She thought about the way Mr Stark would eye the bruises she could never quite fully hide and the way he sounded worried when he asked about them. She thought that maybe she’d already known that Mr Stark cared about her. She thought that maybe Mr Stark cared about her more than the Prescotts ever had or ever would. She wasn’t sure if that was a happy thought or not. “He does show it.” she admitted.

Miss Potts hummed, looking a little proud, and then she asked “May I see your wrists Penny?”

Penny flinched, her eyes widening and her heart beat quickening. “Why?” she signed, and she knew it was too fast.

“Tony comes back hurt sometimes. Not always, but too often, and when he does he always moves carefully, like he’s in pain. Like you are moving right now.”

“I’m fine.” Penny signed.

“May I see your wrists then?”

Penny abruptly realised that the hair bands on her wrists made it very obvious she was trying to hide something. “It’s cold.” she signed, hoping desperately that Miss Potts would take the excuse.

“Friday, could you turn the heat up please?”

Penny shook her head, the movement instinctive and frightened. It was clear she couldn’t lie to Miss Potts, and it was just as clear that her refusal was telling its own story. Slowly, she removed the hairband from her left wrist and pushed the sleeve up, showing her pale skin dotted with a couple of bruises. She hoped Miss Potts would think that was what she was trying to hide. “I tripped on the stairs.” she signed, and hoped Miss Potts didn’t know how often she’d used that as an excuse. Hoped Mr Stark hadn’t said anything. She’d thought Mr Stark had believed her when she explained away her bruises, but now she wasn’t so sure.

Miss Potts just frowned, and gestured to her other arm, and Penny’s stomach sunk. She shook her head, expression pleading.

“You don’t have to show me Penny,” Miss Potts said finally “but I am going to have to ask you to see a doctor when we can get out of here; you’re clearly hurt.”

Penny flinched back, unable to stop the horror washing over her face. Even if she wasn’t a mutant, she couldn’t go to the doctors. Penny had bad memories of doctors. Awful memories of being examined that awful Thursday four years ago, and of lying still and silent and hollow on a hospital bed afterwards. And then dozens of memories of doctors trying to work out why she wouldn’t talk, and then trying to make her talk. Penny hated doctors with a burning passion threaded with terror. Doctors reminded Penny of things she mustn’t think about. She was horrified to feel tears well up in her eyes, and her head shook wildly, her hands signing please over and over and over.

“Penny, Penny look at me, it’s going to be ok. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Miss Potts couldn’t say that. Penny would drown in those memories. She’d drown and shatter and never be able to fix herself. She didn’t want to remember. She couldn’t bear to remember. Tears slid down her face, and her breath came in gasps, and she’d be having a panic attack except the pain in her ribs was sharp enough to tether her to the here and now. She abruptly remembered that Miss Potts had said she needed to see a doctor after backing off needing to see her arm. “I’ll show you.” she signed “I don’t need to see a doctor. I’ll show you.”

She tried to grab the hairband off her right wrist, but her hands were shaking too much and maybe she wasn’t having a panic attack but she wasn’t ok either.

Gentle fingers moved her hand out of the way, and Penny saw through blurry eyes that Miss Potts had moved closer. “Penny, listen to me, it’s going to be ok. Can you take deep breaths for me? I’m going to count for you, in for 3 beats, hold for 3, out for 3. Take as long as you need, there’s no rush, just focus on breathing.”

Penny obeyed, trying to match her breathing to Miss Potts calm counting, slowing down her rapid breaths and letting Miss Potts’s calm voice lull her into her own calm. “I’m sorry” she signed eventually.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“Do you still need to look at my wrist?”

“I’m afraid I do, that or you need to go to a doctor, and I can’t promise you won’t have to go anyway.”

Penny took a deep breath, mentally decided on a story she would tell, and nodded. She held her wrist out, because she didn’t think she could take it off herself, and gentle fingers eased the hairband over her hand and pushed her sleeve up.

Miss Potts didn’t react as audibly as Ned had, but her expression went suddenly blank. Penny’s healing was still mostly working on her ribs, which had probably been at least cracked, and the result was that her wrist had barely healed at all. In fact, the colourful array of blues and purples were almost worse than the black it had been earlier. It still showed the unmistakable imprint of fingers around her wrist.

“Penny, I need you to answer honestly, did your guardians do this?”

It was the obvious reason, and Penny’s stomach twisted with fear. If Miss Potts thought the Prescotts were hurting her, it wouldn’t just be her that was moved. She looked up, made herself meet Miss Potts eyes, and shook her head firmly. It was true, and Penny could only hope that showed on her face.

Given the way Miss Potts relaxed incrementally, it was enough. Penny would have wilted in relief if Miss Potts hadn’t then asked “Who did do this?”

Penny tried not to answer too fast, and she tried not to hesitate either, but she wasn’t sure how well she managed “I got into a fight with an older kid at school.”

“A bully?”

Penny shook her head firmly. If Miss Potts thought she was being bullied she might contact the school and then her story would fall apart. “No, I, I, I, it was my fault. I picked the fight. Please don’t tell my guardians, they’ll kick me out if they knew I’d been fighting.”

Penny wasn’t sure if Miss Potts bought the first bit of the story, but she clearly believed the second part, possibly because it was true. Penny apparently wasn’t a very good liar. “Your guardians would kick you out just for that?”

“There’s a strict no violence rule,” Penny explained, even though in practice the rule really meant ‘no getting caught’, “and they didn’t want me anyway. They only took me because the only other place nearby was for kids coming out of juvie. And if I have to move any further I’ll have to move schools. Please don’t say anything. Please.”

Friday’s voice didn’t really express the level of desperation Penny felt, but she hoped Miss Potts would read it from the speed of her hands and the desperation on her face.

Miss Potts was silent for a terrifying length of time, but finally she nodded “I won’t tell them, but I want you to know you can come to me if you’re in trouble.”

“Why?” Penny asked, because Miss Potts was the CEO of Stark Industries and she was just an intern.

“Tony doesn’t care about a lot of people, not the way he cares about you. Anyone Tony cares that much for, I care about too.”

Penny didn’t know what to reply to that. It felt like an eternity since an adult had said they cared about her. The thought was bittersweet. The Prescotts didn’t care about her like this, they didn’t have time. What did it say that the CEO of Stark Industries and the head of R&D (and an Avenger) found time to care? She didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded jerkily, and pulled her sleeve back down over her wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst. I'm afraid things are going to get worse before they get better. There was Penny-Pepper bonding though!
> 
> Comments make me happy :-)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of foster siblings and spider suits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos on this story! I'm having a kind of rough time at the moment (although honestly, I suspect most people are) and getting so many responses is really brightening up my days, so thank you all so much!!!

Penny was half an hour late for curfew by the time she got back, but she didn’t get into trouble and she felt pathetically grateful for Miss Potts for calling them earlier. Mr Stark had been fine, and Penny hadn’t dared ask about Wanda who Penny Parker hadn’t even met, but she thought Mr Stark would look more stressed if one of his team-mates was hurt. Mr Stark let them out when he got back, and then sent Penny home with a box of food to eat in the car. Penny scarfed the lot down in the car and hoped Happy was too focused on the road to realise Penny was eating inhuman portions of food behind him.

She went to bed pretty much as soon as she got back, exhaustion for once winning out over her fear of nightmares, and she slept soundly through the night for once. She woke up to find her ribs were almost entirely better, and almost cried when she could twist her body without debilitating pain. The bruises on her wrist were also distinctly less pronounced and Penny thought that the food and sleep had probably given her healing more energy to work with. She remembered with a sudden rush of excitement that today was a Saturday, and so her first afternoon of training with the Avengers was this afternoon. Which was so beyond awesome Penny couldn’t even begin to describe it. Although given how ratty and cobbled together her ‘suit’ looked, this might be rather humiliating. But it was worth being humiliated to train with the Avengers.

Penny grabbed her phone and, in a sudden burst of optimism, texted Ned an apology. She shoved her phone in her back pocket and headed downstairs to grab some breakfast.

Her optimism lasted for about the length of time it took to get downstairs and walk into the kitchen to find Kirsty on the phone and crying. Penny didn’t even need enhanced hearing to hear a woman yelling on the other end, and from the words Penny could guess it was her mother. It didn’t sound like she liked Kirsty much.

It was too late to retreat, she’d already been seen and leaving now would only make it worse. She grabbed a bowl from the cupboard, and dumped cereal in it, trying to move as quickly as she could to get the milk out, pour it and put it away again. She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl as she passed it and went to grab her bowl and leave when Kirsty hung up the phone and whirled on her.

“What the fuck are you doing listening to me?” Kirsty snarled, and Penny abruptly realised that staying had not been the right decision. She raised her hands to sign that she wasn’t but Kirsty was already shouting again. “What the hell would you know about parents anyway? You got yours killed and then you got your uncle shot up.”

Penny saw red. One moment she was about to apologise and retreat, and the next moment her hand was pulling back and whipping forwards, and the apple flew at Kirsty’s head. She had just enough sense to pull her throw at the last moment, sending it flying at her foster sister at something approaching a normal human throwing speed, and Kirsty managed to dodge just in time. The apple hit the wall hard enough to splatter a little, and the door chose that moment to bang open.

“Kristina! Penelope!”

Penny froze. Kirsty reacted faster. “She’s mad, she just attacked me!”

Penny shook her head desperately, but she didn’t need to.

“Don’t lie to me Kristina. I heard what you said to her. Go to your room. You’re grounded.”

“What?! But I didn’t do anything! She’s the one who attacked me! I thought there was no violence allowed?”

Mrs Prescott pointed towards the door “Go.”

Kristy shot Penny a filthy look but went, leaving Penny alone with Mrs Prescott.

“Please don’t kick me out.” she begged, the signs desperate and useless because Mrs Prescott didn’t know sign language. Unlike Mr Stark, she didn’t care to learn. She probably didn’t have time to learn, but that excuse seemed weak and flimsy now. Mrs Prescott thought like most other adults who knew there was nothing medically wrong with her. She thought Penny needed to learn how to talk. She thought Penny was choosing not to talk.

Mrs Prescott gestured irritably at the whiteboard by the side of the room, and Penny wrote it out, the words messy with the speed and panic with which she wrote them.

“I’m not going to have you relocated, you were severely provoked. But you’re on very thin ice. Go to your room, you’re grounded for the weekend.”

Penny nodded in a flood of relief, grabbed her bowl of cereal and fled before Miss Prescott could change her mind. It wasn’t until she reached her room that she realised what it meant.

There was no way she would manage to sneak out the front door, the Prescotts’ office was right by the door, and she couldn’t risk climbing out the window in broad daylight. There wasn’t even a tree outside her window she could use to sneak out without risking her secret identity.

She couldn’t go to Avenger’s Tower to train.

\-----------

Penny tried to make the best of it. She refused to cry, knowing Kirsty might hear from her own room. She ate her breakfast and told herself having gotten food before it all went wrong was a positive. But the food wasn’t nearly enough and it was barely a positive. She did her best to distract herself with maths until lunch, and then suffered through the ‘family’ meal, trying to avoid looking at Kirsty, who was still glaring daggers at her.

She fell asleep on her math textbook after lunch, and woke up covered in sweat and haunted by the sound of gunshots and the memory of her uncle crumpling to the floor. The food she got at the evening meal barely even took the edge off her hunger and was barely worth Kirsty’s death glares and the suffocating silence broken by the Prescotts stilted attempts at making conversation. Penny was grateful to lock herself back into her room afterwards, the click of the lock as comforting as it always was. She changed into her suit and waited impatiently for it to get dark enough for her to climb out the window. When it was finally dark enough, Penny opened it, only to freeze and footsteps stopped in front of her door. A note was slid under the crack, and then the footsteps vanished. Penny hesitated, but curiosity won out, and she went back to grab the note.

She wished she hadn’t.

‘I’ll get you for this parent killer. I had plans today. I’ll make you wish you died with your loser uncle.’

Penny gulped in a choked breath. She tried to remember that Kirsty was vicious to everyone. That she probably didn’t really mean it. She tried to be grateful she’d had uncle Ben as a good role model, and to focus on that as a positive. It didn’t help much. She threw the note in the garbage and half flung herself out the window, scrambling across the wall and following her usual route out of the area until she could start webbing. She told herself not to think about Kirsty. She told herself not to care, but her chest felt tight and her eyes felt hot and she couldn’t help remembering the way she’d screamed too late to warn uncle Ben, and the way the light had faded from her only family’s eyes.

The Black Widow was standing on the rooftop they’d talked last time. Penny didn’t even notice until she passed her, too pre-occupied to really take in her surroundings, and she had to twist in mid-air and double back. She didn’t even notice until she landed how angry the Black Widow was. How fury was expressed in every hard line of her body.

The Black Widow stalked towards her, every step accompanied by slow, furious words. “What part of ‘You’re going to come to Avengers Tower every Saturday’ did you not understand?”

Penny didn’t answer, unable to find a way to explain what had happened without giving away that she was a teenager. She took a step backwards, instinctively retreating from the woman’s anger.

“Don’t you _dare_ run off! Do you have any idea how worried Wanda was when you didn’t show up?”

Penny burst into tears.

There was a moment when she knew it was about to happen, and she futilely tried not to let it, and then she was crying. She sank to the cold rooftop and curled in on herself, utterly humiliated but unable to stop the wrenching sobs that tore through her. Hearing she’d worried Wanda was just one thing too many, and she couldn’t deal with everything anymore. Miss Potts asking to see her wrist last night, Kirsty’s words this morning, the way the Prescotts hadn’t even checked on her to see if she was ok afterwards, missing the training, the nightmare of uncle Ben’s death, Kirsty’s note, and now this.

“Uhhh, there there? It’s ok?”

Penny realised, through the wrenching force of her sobs, that the Black Widow was trying to comfort her, and gave a hysterical sounding laugh and, absurdly, felt a little better.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out “I’m not usually this much of a mess.”

“That makes two of us. I’m usually much better than this. That’s twice I’ve made you cry.”

Penny gave another hysterical sounding laugh, trying to stop her tears, but once she’d started it felt impossibly hard to stop. “No-ot really you.” she choked out.

“Yes, I gathered that. I’m sorry for not asking if there was a reason you didn’t turn up.”

“ ‘s my fault. You only know stubborn me.” Penny admitted.

The Black Widow snorted “True, but I know Wanda, and she said we could trust you. I guess I owe her an apology. I might have forbidden her to come here tonight so I could deal with you alone.”

“You might as well get it over with then,” Penny choked out “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well I’m not going to shout at you _now_. I would like to know what happened though, while you’re not going to run away.”

“I think my housemate might be trying to kill me.” Penny said, still slightly hysterical, “I threw an apple at her head.” The sobs were starting to ease off the slightest bit, and the weight that felt like it was crushing her chest was easing off. She’d probably passed the peak of her breakdown, and was heading for exhausted inability to cry.

“As in literally kill you, or she’s mad at you?” the Black Widow checked.

“I _think_ the latter.” she said. “She stuck a note under my door saying I should have died wi...um, I should have died when a thing happened.”

“You need a better housemate.” the Black Widow observed, surprisingly conversational.

Penny laughed again, the sound less hysterical but drenched in bitterness. “I know. I’m sorry I missed training.”

“Is this likely to happen again?”

“Probably.” Penny admitted, because weekends were weekends, and if it wasn’t one thing it would be another.

“What about an evening then, you seem to be out most evenings.”

“But I patrol in the evenings.” Penny protested.

“Not every evening, and there is such a thing as police you know. The world can manage without you.”

Penny huffed, but she was too worn out to really be annoyed. “Fine, I’ll come to the Tower on Saturday evenings.”

“Excellent. Now how about you report on what you’ve been doing this week and we’ll pretend this never happened?”

That actually sounded pretty good, and Penny let herself have a moment to be grateful that the Avenger wasn’t making a big deal out of her bursting into tears. It had been humiliating enough as it was. “Nothing really happened. I rescued a couple of cats from trees on Thursday evening and then got ambushed by a couple of thugs pretending to mug another thug so yet another thug could beat me up with a crowbar. _Again._ What is it with thugs and crowbars?”

“You got beaten up?! Why didn’t you _start_ with that?”

Penny shrugged “It’s ok, I have freaky fast healing. I’m fine now. Not even a bruise.”

“Hmmm, where did you get hit?”

“Ribs, it was only a couple of times. I uh, I ran away.” she admitted.

“Good.” the Black Widow said, “Knowing when to run is an important skill. Let me see your ribs.”

“What? No way, it’s freezing!” Penny said.

“And your ribs could be cracked from being hit with a crowbar! Do you even have any medical training?”

Penny didn’t. “I’m not taking my clothes off.” she said, and she meant it to come out firm but it really came out thick with things Penny tried not to think about.

It must have shown in her voice because the Black Widow backed off, something that wasn’t pity but might have been sympathy in her voice “OK, you don’t have to. Can you feel along your ribs? Tell me if anything hurts.”

Relieved, Penny obeyed “It hurts a little over the ribs that were cracked. But only on the surface, and the ribs don’t move so I think it’s fine.”

There was a moment of silence. “You knew your ribs were cracked?”

Penny suspected they might have been broken but realised mentioning that probably wasn’t a good idea “Um, I think so?”

“And you didn’t worry it might be broken and could puncture your lung?”

“It can do that?”

“Yes Spider Woman, it can do that. Exactly how young are you?”

Penny gulped, “Old enough to understand I need to get a med-school book out of the library and read up on first aid?”

“You’re in college?”

Penny had meant her middle school library, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth “Spend my life in math and science textbooks” she confirmed, hoping it was just true enough to fool the Black Widow. Technically, she did read college level stuff, but it was self-study, and with everything going on in her life, she didn’t get as much time for it as she wished.

“Well sign yourself up for a first aid class. Before you get badly hurt.”

Penny personally thought that getting hit in the head with a crowbar probably counted as badly hurt, but the Black Widow didn’t know that, and she didn’t intend to tell her. “Yes ma’am.”

“Do _not_ call me that.”

“Yes Miss Black Widow.”

“It’s Natasha. Or Agent Romanoff if you absolutely have to.” her voice indicated what she’d think of that.

“Yes uhm, Natasha.”

“Was that as difficult as it sounded?”

“Maybe?”

Natasha snorted, and got up, offering Penny a hand. Penny ignored it in favour of just springing up from the rooftop. “So can I go patrol then?”

“Yes, but for goodness sake be careful. There aren’t enough decent people in this world for it to afford to lose one to her own stupidity.”

“I am literally not sure if I just got complimented or insulted.”

“And you never will be. Scram before I decide to drag you back to the Tower for a check-up.”

Penny scrammed.

\------------

Ned still wasn’t talking to her come Monday. Penny took one look at her former best friend’s face and didn’t even try it. She sat on her own in class and tried not to care about Flash taking advantage of her misery to throw even more spitballs in her direction and make it worse. She reminded herself that it was an internship day and she had that to look forward to after class.

It felt like everything was going wrong that day. Flash seemed to grow more and more vindictive as the day wore on, and to make it worse Penny felt a constant tingling down the back of her neck, but whenever she looked round nobody was watching her. By lunchtime she was not only feeling paranoid and on edge but had also developed a headache from having her hair yanked multiple times and wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. But crying would show Flash he’d gotten to her, so she just focussed on taking deep breaths and tried not to let the thick ball in her throat become actual tears.

Ned sat somewhere else in the cafeteria during lunch, and the message was blindingly clear and enough to bring Penny that much closer to tears. She found somewhere else to sit as well, unable to bear sitting in their usual spot without Ned, and ate as quickly as she could so she could escape to the library. She buried herself in math and refused to let herself think about anything but the numbers and letters on the page in front of her. She didn’t share her next class with either Flash or Ned and Penny tried to count it as a positive but it didn’t seem to be helping so she kept reading her math book when the teacher wasn’t looking. Ned continued his pattern of sitting somewhere else in their next class and Penny forced herself not to look at him, not to let on that it hurt. The tingling feeling of being watched was only getting more intense and Penny wondered if her spider-sense was broken. It didn’t improve her mood.

She had to run back to the library after final class to find a book on first-aid, not wanting to bump into Natasha again before she started learning. That woman was seriously scary. She wondered what Ned would say if he knew she’d met three Avengers (four if you included her brief interaction with the Falcon) and smiled briefly, but then she remembered that Ned hated her and the smile fell off her face. She took the book out and headed for the subway.

The feeling of being watched increased even more outside Midtown, and Penny considered the possibility that she was just paranoid. She couldn’t concentrate on the first-aid book and ended up having to put it away, hoping the watched feeling would go away once she got out of the crowded subway.

To Penny’s relief the feeling did eventually go away once she reached Avengers Tower. Which suggested that the Tower made her feel safe, which was kind of sad. She was supposed to get to feel safe at school. She was supposed to feel safe in the place where she slept. The fact that she felt safe in the Tower was bittersweet. She headed up to the cafeteria to get some food and silence (for a little while) the vicious creature her stomach had become, and then up to Mr Stark’s lab. Mr Stark was taking apart a machine that looked a lot like the Falcon’s wings when Penny arrived, and he waved at Penny with an oily hand. “Come over here and help me with this, it’ll be quicker with two. We’re going to finish Spider Woman’s suit tonight, you’re staying the night, I already called your guardians and social worker.”

Penny blinked in shock “You did?” she signed.

“Yeah, I mean, you don’t have to, but if you’d like to, uh, you can.” Mr Stark said, looking unusually nervous.

Penny thought about not having to return to the group home, where the Prescotts didn’t care and someone was always shouting and Kirsty threw vicious words at her, and almost burst into tears in relief. She hadn’t realised how much she dreaded returning every evening until she was suddenly offered a respite. She nodded before she could even stop to think about patrolling, or how she didn’t have pyjamas or a tooth brush or anything.

A suddenly wide smile spread across Mr Stark’s face, and it made Penny’s chest feel light and warm. She bent over Falcon’s wings before she could dwell on it too long. It wouldn’t be good to get attached, Mr Stark was just her boss, and sooner or later the internship would end. Everything ended sooner or later, even the things you never thought would ever be taken away.

Mr Stark was right, fixing Falcon’s wings did go quickly between the two of them, and before long they were working on the wiring for Spider Woman’s suit. Penny wasn’t sure whether she was more excited to be working on the suit (which used so much science Penny had only ever read about in theory and involved calculations and engineering that made her have to stretch for every answer) or at the prospect of finishing it and getting to try it out (although Mr Stark didn’t know that). The suit had a built in heater! And shock absorbers, pockets for spare web-fluid and anything else Spider Woman might need, plus a parachute, a mini-drone, and a _built in AI_.

Of course the suit also came with two trackers and various monitors that would send her health data back to Mr Stark, which Penny was going to need to deal with before she put the suit on. Luckily, she knew where the trackers were, and she’d seen Mr Stark do a lot of the coding, so she was fairly sure she could reprogram it to stop the suit sending too much information back. Or at least to reprogram it to loop that information if Penny ever needed it.

Miss Potts came down to fetch them from the lab several hours later, after they’d ignored three messages Friday had passed on, and glared at them until they both meekly put down the tools and went to wash up for supper. It was a testimony to how interesting the work they’d been doing was that Penny had ignored a call to food. Even having had a big meal only four hours ago, Penny was starving. Penny was almost always starving.

Once they’d washed the oil and other machine fluids off their hands, Friday took them to floor 98. The ping of the elevator opening was followed by a voice calling “You’re late Tony.”

“Yeah, yeah Capsicle,” Tony shouted back, “some of us have actual stuff to be doing!”

Before Penny could even absorb that _Captain America_ was in the next room, a more familiar voice called out “Says the man who’s been playing with spark plugs all day.”

Penny missed Mr Stark’s highly offended sounding answer in the rush of horror washing over her. That was _Natasha’s_ voice. Natasha who was a highly perceptive super-spy who had _met Penny as Spider Woman_. There were so, so, so many ways this could go wrong. But Spider Woman could talk, and Penny Parker couldn’t, so surely even the Black Widow couldn’t work it out. Could she?

Penny nervously followed Mr Stark into a kitchen and tried to look as innocent as possible. The room was already fairly crowded. It was a massive room, both a large kitchen and dining room combined, but there were enough people moving around to make it look busy. The Falcon and Wanda (oh noooo, Wanda had not only met her but knew her pretty well as Spider Woman!) were stirring various pots, while Captain America and Natasha were spreading cutlery and cups around a large wooden dining table. The Vision was eyeing the cooking with an expression somewhere between interest and confusion, and Hawkeye and Miss Potts were grating blocks of cheese into a massive bowl at the side of the kitchen. The latter smiled at Penny as she came in, and Penny sent a weak smile back, even as Mr Stark cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.

“Guys, meet Penny Parker, she’s staying for the night so we can finish Spider Woman’s suit. Which is much more complicated than spark plugs.” Mr Stark said, directing the last comment at Natasha with a glare. “Penny, meet my team mates. The red-head with no respect for science is Natasha, and the man grating cheese with Pep is Clint; stay away from them, they’ll get you into trouble.”

Penny waved nervously at the two Avengers, who looked rather proud of being introduced like that.

“Over at the cooker are Wanda and Sam, and studying the cooking is Vision, who is not allowed to cook under any circumstances. And the guy laying the table is Steve, who might make you pancakes in the morning if you’re lucky. Rhodey would usually be here but he’s off doing boring stuff for the US army.”

The various Avengers offered Penny smiles or waves as they were introduced, and Penny had to use the majority of her self control not to let on that she was internally squealing. She couldn’t believe she was meeting the Avengers! As Penny Parker! Although, thinking about it, this probably wouldn’t make training with the Avengers come Saturday evening any easier. That was future Penny’s problem though, current Penny needed to focus on not visibly squealing.

Mr Stark hustled her into a chair once he’d introduced his team, refusing to let her help. Penny shifted nervously in the chair, watching the group of super-powered agents work around each other with impressive speed. Within a minute the table was completely laid and the food had been moved to the centre. Wanda dropped into the seat next to her, which was on one hand comforting because she knew Wanda, and on the other hand nerve racking because she wasn’t supposed to know her.

Mr Stark thankfully sat on her other side, and shoved a bowl of pasta and sauce in front of her, waving to the bowls of cheese and salad. “Help yourself kid, before this greedy lot finishes it all.”

Penny gave a weak smile back, not quite sure how to respond to the banter, but took some cheese and as much salad as she dared. She knew she wasn’t eating nearly as many vitamins as her body needed, and there was so much salad on the table, but she dared not take too much food, not with people as famously observant as Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton also sitting at the table. She could feel curious eyes on her, and tried not to look up to meet them. She didn’t belong here, she and Miss Potts were the only non-Avengers at the table and Miss Potts was practically an honorary Avenger. Penny was just Penny, even as Spider Woman she wasn’t nearly in their league, and as far as they knew she was just a normal kid. She sank low in her chair and tried to be invisible.

After a few minutes the feeling of being watched went away, either because she stopped being interesting or because her discomfort was noticed. She wasn’t sure she really cared either way as long as she could fade into the background. She gulped down her food quickly, hoping that if she ate quickly nobody would notice how much food she was eating. She stopped before she was full anyway, even though there was plenty of food left. A full stomach wasn’t worth risking her identity. It wasn’t. Even if it felt like it was. This was still a lot more food than she got on a non-internship day anyway, and more food than there ever was at a meal at the Prescotts. With so many hungry teenagers living in the same house, and most income coming from foster stipends, there was never enough food around. More food was already a positive, Penny decided, she didn’t need to feel completely full.

Wanda attempted to make conversation during the meal, but Penny couldn’t talk, and with so many conversations going on at once the sound of Friday’s voice speaking over them made Penny cringe with embarrassment and shame, trying to sink through the chair. After a little while Wanda gave up, just giving her gentle smiles instead of trying to say anything. Penny didn’t want to admit it was a relief, but it was. Wanda was Spider Woman’s friend, and Penny didn’t want to slip up.

Once she’d finished her food, Penny risked discretely watching the rest of the Avengers. Mr Stark was having some kind of joking argument with Steve Rogers, who was also attempting to have a conversation with Natasha at the same time and getting flustered as he kept missing bits of both conversations, to Mr Stark and Natasha’s evident glee. Clint Barton and Sam Wilson were bickering over whose code-name was cooler, and Wanda was attempting to explain the taste of food to Vision. Penny privately thought that trying to explain taste to someone who could not taste was doomed to failure, but kept that to herself. Penny stopped watching when Miss Potts caught her eye, dropping her gaze to the table, cheeks flushing with embarrassment at getting caught.

At some kind of unseen signal everyone got up to help clear the table. Penny scrambled up after them, carrying things over to the kitchen counters and helping load the dishwasher, and then take other stuff to the table. Penny flinched when she suddenly found herself face to face with Natasha, but the woman just handed Penny a tub of ice-cream and turned round to grab something else. Penny tried to remember how to breathe, reminded herself that the Black Widow couldn’t actually read minds, and took the ice-cream to the table. She managed not to flinch when a box of assorted sprinkles was handed to her. It was still a relief to sit down with everyone else.

“Hey kid, what flavour do you want?” Mr Stark asked.

Penny shrugged, wishing she could turn invisible and stop feeling so conspicuous.

“I’ll give you some of everything, can’t have too much ice-cream.” Mr Stark decided

“You’re not giving her some of everything.” Miss Potts said firmly “There are twelve tubs, she’ll be sick.”

Penny almost signed that it sounded like a nice challenge, but she just managed to stop herself. She wasn’t sure if this was a safe context to be sassy in. If she was still living with uncle Ben she would have, but uncle Ben was dead, and there weren’t any places anymore where Penny was really sure she was safe to sass. Instead she pointed to three random tubs and gave Mr Stark the best smile she could muster when he passed them to her, followed by half the sauces and sprinkles. Penny had to hold herself back from taking too much, aware she’d already eaten more than a normal person would anyway. Her stomach twinged with lingering hunger though, and it took more self-control than Penny was willing to admit not to drench the ice cream in calorie-containing sauce. But Penny was used to hunger by now, and this much food was already a positive, and she tried not to think about how she’d be painfully hungry again in a few hours.

Penny and Mr Stark returned to the lab after dessert was cleared away, and Penny couldn’t help letting out a quiet sigh of relief. You’d think she’d know how to act around a bunch of strangers who already knew each other by now, but even being placed with the Prescotts hadn’t been that hard. When she’d first been placed with them she’d been too mad with grief to care about anything going on around her, and she hadn’t had to hide a whole secret identity.

Within ten minutes though she’d forgotten about it as they both immersed themselves in the suit. It was almost finished, they’d done all the designing, and most of the building, they just had all the fiddly last bits to finish up, connecting all the wiring and testing it all worked properly. Miss Potts came down to the lab at around 10.30, reminding Mr Stark that he may be used to staying up half the night but Penny was not, and she had school in the morning. Penny wanted to say that she was actually used to staying up half the night, and she wanted to help finish the suit, but it was Spider Woman who was always out late. Penny Parker was supposed to like early nights and not being disturbed in the evenings. It didn’t matter anyway, because Mr Stark was suddenly saying he hadn’t noticed the time and hurrying Penny over to the elevator. Friday took them to floor 94, which turned out to be Mr Stark and Miss Potts’ apartment.

Penny was given a lightning fast tour of the massive apartment, told to help herself to the fridge if she got hungry in the night, and shown to a guest room. For a guest room it was really nice, with much more personality than her room at the group home, even after Penny living there for over six months. The walls were painted a calming blue, with little knick-knacks scattered around the desk and shelves. A wide bed was covered with a red and blue quilt, and there were several paintings hanging up on the walls. A pair of pyjamas, a towel, and a toothbrush had been left on the bed, and Penny felt her eyes prick with tears at how welcoming the room looked. She couldn’t help remembering how her bed hadn’t even had sheets when she arrived at the group home, and how it had looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks.

The Prescotts had to look after the house themselves (and through getting the teens to all do chores) though, and they didn’t have the money to hire someone else to clean an unused room. Even so, Mr Stark had clearly had someone prepare the room for her, and that was more than the Prescotts did. Penny decided not to think about that too hard, or she might burst into tears.

“I’m going back to the lab, but Pep’s just down the hall if you need anything, or you could ask Friday. Let her know if the pyjamas don’t fit, or you need anything else, and uh, don’t stay up too late? I don’t think your guardians will let us do this again if you come back looking like you only slept two hours. Best fool them into thinking I’m responsible.”

Penny let a grin creep across her face “Thank you Mr Stark” she signed.

“It’s Tony,” he said, for what might actually be the hundredth time (possibly more) “sleep well kid.”

“Sleep well Mr Stark.” she signed back, laughing internally at his exasperated look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penny got to meet the Avengers!!!
> 
> Comments make me happy :-)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony had gotten desperate, various tempers run too high and it has consequences for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the angst train...

For a moment, when Penny woke, she didn’t know where she was, and that only made things worse. The blanket tangled around her sweaty body wasn’t hers but it felt as restraining as hers, and panic throbbed through every inch of her body. She remembered where she was just as Friday put the lights on and started talking, low and soothing, but it was already much too late. Penny bolted out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, barely making it in time to puke her guts up into the toilet, her whole body trembling with the echoes of her nightmare. A door opened down the hall as Penny puked again, her whole body clenching up as she retched into the toilet. She tried to hold her hair back but her hands were shaking too much and bits kept escaping, almost falling in the way.

Light footsteps padded up behind her, and then cool fingers were pulling her hair out of the way as she puked a third time, stomach acid burning her throat painfully. She dry retched several more times, her body clenching up painfully each time, but the worst was over. Someone, Penny thought it was Miss Potts, handed her a wad of tissue to wipe her mouth, and then let go of her hair, returning a moment later with a beaker of water. Penny rinsed her mouth out twice, and then took a gulp of water, swiping at the tears running humiliatingly down her face.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to be embarrassed, we all get nightmares.” Miss Potts soothed, but Penny doubted Miss Potts had ever puked her guts up after a stupid bad dream. But saying that would only make it worse, so she just tried to make her shaky legs work and lift her from the ground.

“Just take a moment.” Miss Potts said, “I’ll get you some dry pyjamas.”

Penny looked down at herself and realised her pyjamas were soaked in sweat, and twisted up around her. Her eyes fell on her lower legs, which were left uncovered by the sweaty pyjamas tangled around her knees, and which were dotted with several spectacular bruises. Penny couldn’t even remember where she got them from. It didn’t really matter. She hoped Miss Potts hadn’t seen them. As soon as Miss Potts was out of the room she tugged them down, and then pulled her sleeves down as well, covering another bruise on her left arm.

Miss Potts came back after a minute with another pair of pyjamas and a towel. “I thought you might like to take a shower, and then we could have a cup of tea? I find that usually helps me. Tony’s still in the lab, I think he’s going to work all night, but I can get him if you like?”

Penny shook her head wildly, panicked. She didn’t want a man around her just then, even Mr Stark, who Penny knew would never hurt her.

“It’s ok, I won’t get him, would you like to shower?”

Penny nodded, and managed to make her arms work to take the new set of pyjamas and towel. Miss Potts gave her a comforting smile and left the bathroom, leaving Penny to lock the door behind her, and coax herself into taking off her sweaty clothes and hopping into the shower. She showered fast, keen to get the feeling of sweat and fear off her body, and then dried off even faster before pulling on the new pyjamas. Unlike the last pair, which had smelled like packaging and newness, these smelled like Miss Potts, and were surprisingly comforting. The legs and sleeves were a little long for her so she rolled them up a little and for a moment she thought about wearing uncle Ben’s jumpers on bad days, and felt surprisingly warm.

Miss Potts was waiting with chamomile tea when she came out and it was so different from nightmare nights at the group home, where Kirsty would curse her and spit vicious things at her and nobody else ever got up, and a lump settled in Penny’s throat. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be comforted.

Miss Potts didn’t talk much, just the occasional comment that reminded Penny that she was there, that she wasn’t alone. She didn’t press her or crowd her, just let her drink her tea and rest, and Penny wondered how Miss Potts had gotten so good at dealing with the after effects of nightmares. She wondered if Miss Potts had sat with Mr Stark after nightmares. She wondered if, some day, they might both sit with a little kid that looked like both of them. The thought made her feel lost and lonely. She would never have that again. Teenagers rarely got fostered outside group homes, and almost never got adopted.

Miss Potts made her a sandwich after the tea, insisting on Penny eating something, and Penny let her, even though her stomach still felt funny. She’d regret not eating it later when her stomach calmed down enough to remember it was hungry. She went back to bed after that, even though she doubted she’d get much more sleep. She wasn’t wrong, but she got another couple hours of uneasy sleep before she gave up altogether. She put on the clothes someone had left on a chair the night before, smelling newness on them and helplessly wondering how much they had cost, and feeling embarrassed that Mr Stark had spent money on her. He’d already given her so much, all the food and materials that he’d given her had to be adding up.

But it would be painfully obvious if she went into school wearing yesterday’s clothes, and Penny didn’t even want to think about what Flash would say, so she put the clothes on. They fit her perfectly, and were even her style, and Penny’s chest felt warm and light at the thought that Mr Stark had cared enough to notice.

Miss Potts was already up when she came out of her room, now dressed in daytime clothes and eating cereal. She said good morning and told Penny where to find bowls and cereal, and gestured for her to sit at the kitchen island with her. Penny’s stomach was already growling painfully, not helped in the least by having puked up at least half of what she’d eaten the night before, and she risked taking a bigger portion than she would have gotten away with at the group home. Miss Potts didn’t say anything, and didn’t seem to care in the slightest, and Penny relaxed slightly. She added milk to her bowl and then climbed onto a stool at the island to eat.

“Penny?” Miss Potts said, and she looked up, made nervous by the tone of Miss Potts’ voice. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask, where did you get the bruises on your arms and legs?”

Penny froze “What bruises?” she signed.

Miss Potts raised an eyebrow, pinning Penny with a look that made guilt squirm in her stomach. “Don’t insult both our intelligences Penny.” Miss Potts said.

“I fell down the stairs, it wasn’t a big deal.” Penny signed, before realising she’d already used that excuse too many times on Mr Stark, and Miss Potts probably knew.

Sure enough, Miss Potts sighed, “Penny, we can’t help you if you won’t tell us who’s hurting you.”

“Nobody’s hurting me.” Penny signed, which was sort of true. Nobody was abusing her at least, which was what Miss Potts really meant. “I fell down the stairs.”

Miss Potts didn’t look like she believed her, and Penny couldn’t really blame her. Penny wouldn’t either in her position. Her stomach twisted, knowing Miss Potts might report it to her social worker, and knowing what disastrous consequences it could have for everyone in the group home. She dropped her spoon into the bowl, no longer hungry.

“Penny, please, we can help.”

“I don’t need help, nobody’s hurting me.” she signed.

Miss Potts didn’t reply for a long moment, then she signed “OK,” she said, “I’ll stop asking. Finish your breakfast.”

Penny’s stomach still felt like lead, but food was food and she couldn’t bear to waste it, so she picked up her spoon and finished the cereal. She tried not to think about what might happen if Miss Potts said anything.

\-----------

Penny went back to the guest room to get her bag, and when she came out she could hear low voices around the corner, and she stopped to listen.

“ _I’m telling you_ , I’ve got nothing, whoever gave her those bruises, they aren’t doing it at school, and as far as I can tell her foster parents aren’t physically abusive, nor are they starving any of the kids.”

“There has to be something! She has to go back this evening!”

“There’s _nothing_ Tony. There’s a boy at school who picks on her, and some of her foster siblings are nasty, but nothing on the scale of the kind of bruises you said she had. I even looked through her room, there’s nothing. I don’t know who’s doing this Tony.”

Penny didn’t hear Mr Stark’s response, she was too busy backtracking, fury and betrayal _ripping_ through her in equal measure. Her spidey-sense wasn’t broken. She _had_ been being watched. Mr Stark had Romanoff spy on her. _Mr Stark_ , who let her help with the coolest projects and sent her home with food and had thought to get her clothes had someone _spy on her._

Her eyes burned, and she blinked them wildly to stop the tears from spilling over. She breathed deeply and evenly and returned to the kitchen to sign at Miss Potts “I’m ready, I need to go now to get the subway.”

Friday repeated it, and Miss Potts shook her head “Nonsense, Happy will drive you.”

Did Happy know? Was he spying on her too? Penny shook her head “I’ll take the subway.” she signed.

A flash of something crossed Miss Potts face, and for a moment Penny felt guilty, until she remembered that Miss Potts had probably known, had probably told Mr Stark about her bruises, and hurt replaced the guilt. It occurred to her with a vicious stab of pain that Mr Stark might have only invited her to stay the night so Romanoff could search her room. It was a good thing her suit and web-shooters were at the bottom of her school bag, where her foster siblings couldn’t find them. Penny had never expected she’d be glad of the precaution for a reason like this.

“I’ll walk you down.” Miss Potts said.

“I know the way” she signed back, and it was definitely hurt on Miss Potts face, but Penny felt like she was one big ball of hurt and she couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d felt so safe this morning, sipping tea with Miss Potts, even though she was usually a mess of nerves for hours after nightmares. And all along she’d almost certainly known that Romanoff was spying on her.

“I’ll walk you down anyway, it’s no trouble.” Miss Potts insisted, and Penny couldn’t find anything to say to argue against it so she just nodded, and signed a half-hearted thanks.

The walk down to the subway was silent and awkward, and not because Friday wasn’t around to translate her signing. It felt like it took far too long to get to the subway stop, and when they got there Miss Potts put her hand on her shoulder to stop her leaving.

“Penny, I’m sorry I upset you, but I want you to know I care about you. I accept that you don’t feel like you can talk about whatever is going on, but I do care about you, I want you to know that. Here, this is my number, if you ever want to talk, if you ever need help, call or text me, anytime ok?”

Penny wanted to shake her head, she wanted to ask why Miss Potts had let Romanoff spy on her if she cared. She wanted to sign that she wouldn’t call her, that she didn’t need help, that she was fine, but Miss Potts didn’t know sign language and she couldn’t talk and she didn’t want to write it down, so she just took the card and nodded half heartedly. Miss Potts hugged her before letting go, sudden and quick but so clearly a hug that Penny almost dropped the card. No adult had hugged her since uncle Ben died. Warmth warred with hurt in her chest and she ran into the subway before her tears could spill over. She wasn’t even sure she knew what affection was anymore. How could the people responsible for her be so distant? How could the people who had no reason to care be so kind, and yet have her spied on? Nothing made sense anymore. She shoved the card at the very bottom of her bag and tried not to let the tears spill over. She tried to find a positive but everything was so confused she couldn’t find something she was sure was positive.

The tingling feeling of being watched returned to her when she got to Midtown, and with it came her anger. She scanned the crowd looking for Romanoff’s distinctive red hair, but couldn’t see it anywhere, and stormed into the school in a foul mood. Her day only worsened from there. It was almost worse knowing for certain that someone was watching her. Humiliation and anger burned in her stomach as Flash picked on her, knowing that someone was witnessing it. Knowing that somebody was watching Flash put gum in her hair and whisper insults and kick her chair and yank her hair. Knowing who was watching her just made it all the worse. Romanoff was so strong and capable, and she must think Penny was a complete doormat. Not that she was that wrong. It wasn’t like Penny had been able to do anything about Flash before the spider bite, and now she could, but she let him bully her anyway.

The feeling of being watched followed her from class to class, and to the cafeteria, and then the library, and on and on and on. Penny kept looking around, trying to work out where Romanoff was, how she was following her, but she couldn’t, and it only made her mood worse. The feeling even followed her back to the group home, meaning she wouldn’t be able to patrol that night, and anger tore at her so hotly she wanted to scream, but when she opened her mouth her throat constricted and no sound came out. No sound ever came out, except when she was Spider Woman, and Penny still didn’t know why. Why could sound come out so easily from behind a mask, but never come out for the simplest word as herself? Maybe Flash was right, maybe she was stupid, and broken.

She got all her homework done in the evening, and then spent hours working on advanced maths. She left the curtains closed, and the feeling of being watched eased, but didn’t go away, and Penny knew Romanoff was still out there. It left her in a foul mood, and even though she usually adored advanced maths, she could barely enjoy it through the anger and betrayal that pulled at her. She left the first-aid book in her bag, a silent act of defiance against Romanoff.

The feeling of being watched followed her to school the next morning, and Penny wanted to scream with rage and frustration and helplessness. When the feeling disappeared and didn’t come back after her first couple of classes, she almost cried with relief. Even sitting alone in the cafeteria without Ned didn’t feel as awful as it had the last couple of times. She caught the subway to the Tower in better spirits than she’d caught the one to school, even though the hurt and betrayal came rushing back as soon as she arrived.

She was noticeably quiet during the internship, and refused to admit anything was wrong when Mr Stark asked, and the afternoon wasn’t as much fun as it usually was, even though they finally finished making Spider Woman’s suit. She only eventually perked up when Mr Stark declared the suit done, and asked if she could get it to Spider Woman. Penny managed to nod without looking too excited, or amused, and eagerly looked forward to trying it out.

“Great, that’s sorted. Let me know if anything needs fixing. Time for a break, no, no arguments, that’s enough work for now. There’s ice-cream in the freezer, don’t tell Pep.”

There was indeed ice-cream in the freezer at the side of the lab, two tubs of it, and Mr Stark gave her one and a spoon, and took the other, taking the lid off and digging his spoon in. “So what’s wrong bambina? Don’t say nothing, we both know you’re lying, it’s insulting.”

Penny shrugged, busying her hands with the ice-cream so she didn’t have to answer. “Nope, we’re not playing the silent game, what’s wrong kiddo?”

Penny stuck the spoon in her mouth and the ice-cream on her lap “I’m always silent.” she signed back.

“You know what I mean, come on kid, I’m not letting you leave until you talk to me.”

Penny shoved the spoon in the ice-cream again, and stuck it in her mouth, scowling. Half of her wanted to sign furious questions about why he had her watched, why he thought that was ok, but the other half of her just wanted to return to the group home and not think about it. She’d trusted Mr Stark. She hadn’t realised how much it would hurt to have that trust broken. Mr Stark was unusually quiet, and just waited her out, until Penny finally signed “You’re going to get me kicked out of my foster home aren’t you?”

Mr Stark choked on his mouthful of ice-cream “What?”

It’s not what’s upsetting Penny, not even close, but it’s a constant dull fear at the back of her mind. “Miss Potts keeps asking questions, and she doesn’t believe nobody hurt me. I’m just clumsy. But if you tell my social worker all the teens in the house will get relocated, and that will destroy most of us. The Prescotts are the only stability we have.”

Penny didn’t sign that it was precious little, or how cold and angry and hostile the house felt most of the time. A place to sleep was a place to sleep, and Penny didn’t want to have to move further away from Midtown. She was bored in class as it was, it would only get worse if she had to go to a normal school

“Penny, someone’s hurting you.” Mr Stark said, his voice helpless and desperate. “I can’t, we can’t let that continue.”

“Nobody’s hurting me!” Penny signed, the movements furious and jerky, fed with anger and hurt that had nothing to do with this and everything to do with Mr Stark having her followed “Why won’t you believe me?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you had _black and blue bruises!_ ”

“ _They were accidents!_ ” Penny snapped back, desperate, and hurt, and panicked.

“The _fuck_ they were accidents! You had _hand shaped bruises_!”

“I got into a fight!”

“With who, a caveman? Why? You never fight, you hide in corners and cringe because you think you’re a bother!”

“I’m fighting now!” Penny signed back, not even realising the truth of it until she signed it. She was fighting. She was fighting with Mr Stark who had taught her so much and gave her free food and made sure she had pyjamas and had done so much for her. But Mr Stark had had her watched and was going to get them all moved out of the Prescotts and everything was _too much_.

“Well congratulations, you’re fighting with the only person trying to help!”

“I don’t _need_ your help!”

“Your bruises would say otherwise!”

“You mean your ego says otherwise!” Penny signed, and just like when she fought with Ned, the words flowed out of her before she could stop them, before she could think them through. “What, is your little orphan Annie not playing ball? You need me to be abused so you can feel good about yourself? Well I’m not abused and I _don’t want you_ messing with my life!”

Mr Stark froze. Stunned hurt cracked across his face and for the first time Penny had seen he was struck silent. She was on her feet, muscles tensed and breathing heavily, and she hadn’t even noticed herself stand up. Mr Stark made a choked sound, trying to speak, but Penny was already turning, running away from the look on Mr Stark’s face like she ran from everything else in her life.

Her hand caught on her bag strap as she passed, fleeing into the elevator and punching the button for the ground floor, tears blurring her vision. The elevator didn’t move for the longest time, so long that Penny was certain Friday was purposefully not moving it, but just when she was about to despair, the elevator doors closed and it went down.

Penny cried on the subway back to the group home. She cried and cried and she didn’t care that people were giving her looks, that a few people even tried talking to her. She just shook her head until they went away.

She ran up to her room at the group home before either of the Prescotts could get out of their office to ask her why she was back early, and locked herself in. She curled up on her bed and cried until her throat was raw, and didn’t come out for dinner, even though hunger clawed at her stomach. Mrs Prescott left a bowl of soup, a chunk of bread and an apple outside her door, and Penny felt pathetically grateful. She inhaled the food and then grabbed her bag. Patrolling would make her feel better.

It was only when she opened her bag that she found the suit, neatly folded between her schoolbooks where she’d put it earlier. She’d forgotten about putting the finished suit in her bag. Half of her wanted to take it out and giddily test it out, but the other half didn’t want anything to do with it. She settled for taking it out and removing the trackers, and connecting the suit to her laptop and hacking until she could disable the suits ability to report back to Mr Stark. It took her longer than she’d hoped, and it only made her mood worse to know that Ned would have gotten in easily. She didn’t want to think about Ned. Or Mr Stark. She didn’t want to think at all. Penny didn’t think there was any positive in this.

She put on her old suit in the end, because it wasn’t really realistic that she could have found time to drop it off with someone else in such a short time. And she didn’t want to think about the hours she’d spent designing and building the suit with Mr Stark. She didn’t want to think about Mr Stark, or the expression on his face when Penny had signed accusative, vicious words at him. She was no better than Kirsty, worse, because Penny was nothing to Kirsty. Mr Stark had been a lot to Penny.

She climbed out the window so she wouldn’t have to think anymore on that. It had been days since she’d patrolled, not since the weekend, and the relief of being out and about, swinging between buildings, was incredible. Her mood improved with every moment she was out, and she was almost happy after stopping three muggings.

But then she caught sight of Romanoff and Wanda standing on the usual rooftop and her improved mood vanished. She swung past them, pretending she hadn’t seen, and her enhanced ears heard Wanda groan “We’re not really doing this again are we? I thought we were passed this. I thought we were friends.”

Penny muttered “Come back without Romanoff and we can chat.” but she knew Wanda couldn’t hear her. A flash of red in her peripheral vision told her Wanda was following, and a quick glance told her she was bringing Romanoff with her. Frickity darn.

She webbed faster, going as far as to leave Queens in the hope that Wanda would take the hint. She didn’t. Penny dropped down to almost ground level and ducked into the shadows, hoping they’d lose her. They didn’t. Penny heard them coming and climbed up the wall, heading back into Queens at a slower pace, resigned but angry enough to show it. She landed on the usual rooftop and panted for breath, hands curling and uncurling into fists at her sides.

“What was that about?” Wanda demanded as soon as they landed, clearly annoyed. Her eyes flashed red but Penny couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Come back without _her_ if you want to talk.” Penny snapped, and jumped off the roof. Red light caught her before she could get far, and she struggled, furious. Wanda dumped her back on the roof and Penny gaped at her, raging.

“Sorry, I’m not in the mood for another game of chase this evening.” Wanda snapped, and evidently Penny’s bad mood was contagious because she sounded genuinely mad.

“When did I become ‘ _her’_?” Romanoff asked, voice somewhere between annoyed and amused, and it only made Penny madder. Penny wasn’t sure she knew how to be anything but mad anymore.

Penny just snarled, unable to find words to express the anger and humiliation she felt after being followed for two days.

“That’s descriptive. Fine, sulk if you want. Answer one question and you can go do what you want.”

“What?” Penny snapped.

“You know Penny Parker right? Who’s hurting her?”

Somewhere deep inside Penny, something went ice-cold with rage. “Where the _fuck_ do you get off?” she asked, barely even noticing that this was the rudest she’d ever been in her entire life.

“Excuse me?”

“You want to know when you became _her_? How about around the same time you started _spying on Penny Parker!_ ”

A flash of surprise, then dawning horror “Does Penny know?”

“What, worried your victim will call you on it?” Penny spat, wounded and humiliated and furious and vicious with it all.

“Hey, calm down! Nat’s just trying to help. Someone’s been hurting Penny.”

Something inside Penny keened at the thought that Mr Stark or Miss Potts or Romanoff had told Wanda. Who else had they told? Did they gossip about stupid little Penny Parker who let everyone hurt her?

“Nobody is hurting Penny! She’s just clumsy.” Penny spat, “Which you ought to know after _spying on her for two days!_ ”

“Penny is not clumsy, I didn’t need to watch her long to know that. And if you’ve noticed me watching her then you’ve been around enough to know that’s _bullshit_. You’re covering for someone; who?”

Penny snarled something wordless again, her whole body vibrating with rage, and she jumped off the roof again. Wanda caught her again, and something inside Penny _snapped_. She fired her web-shooters before she fully realised she’d made a decision. Romanoff twisted lithely out of the way, but she caught Wanda, pinning one foot to the rooftop. She ran at Romanoff before her common sense could reassert herself. There was a blur of movement and then her back hit the roof hard, Romanoff on top of her. For an instant terror overrode fury, and Penny thrashed in blind panic, things Penny didn’t want to remember tearing at her mind. Then she was up again, Romanoff watching her warily.

“You need to calm down. Now.”

Penny didn’t answer, the rage returning as soon as the panic faded, and she ran at her again. This time she found herself face down on the roof, arms pinned behind her back. “ _Calm down._ _Now_.”

Penny didn’t calm down. Instead she threw her legs back, using every bit of her flexibility to kick Romanoff in the back. The woman grunted and twisted her arms tighter “Do that again and you _will_ regret it.” she promised, her voice a deadly promise. Penny went still.

“Good, now let me make this _very clear_ to you. Penny Parker is a 14 year old child. I don’t know what your relationship is with her, but you clearly do not know what’s best for her. Not given the bruises she apparently has.”

Penny wanted to snarl that Romanoff was giving her more bruises right now, but some small remaining layer of common sense kept her silent. But the assertion that she didn’t know what was best for herself _burned_. What did Romanoff know about her life? Penny had been pretty much on her own for over nine months and she was _fine_.

“Who. Is. Hurting. Her?”

“Nobody.” Penny snarled, starting to fight Romanoff’s grip again.

“You’re lying.” Wanda said from the side, her voice small and subdued and hurt. “Even I can tell you’re lying. Is it you? Are you hurting her?”

And just like that, Penny lost the only friend she had left.

Wanda _knew_ her. Had spent hours and hours talking with her. Wanda knew why she was Spider Woman, knew she wanted to help, wanted to stop the bad things happening. Knew she got hurt because she wouldn’t retreat until she’d stopped the bad thing. And Wanda asked if she’d hurt someone.

Something deep inside Penny keened with indescribable pain.

“I would _never_.” she choked, and even she could hear the tears in her own voice. She stopped fighting, stopped caring about being pinned to a rooftop. She had no-one, no-one she could trust.

She was alone in the world.

A finger hooked under the back of her mask, and Penny couldn’t even find it in herself to be surprised. Desperate, yes. Reckless, yes. Surprised, no.

She thrashed, and where before she had fought with fury, now she fought with reckless desperation. Somewhere in her thrashing she tossed her head back and connected with Romanoff’s with enough force to send the impact throbbing through her head, and Romanoff released her. Penny didn’t even have a moment to be relieved she had enhanced strength before she had to roll away, springing to her feet and backing away. She fired her web shooters desperately, shooting four times before she finally hit the Black Widow, pinning her leg to the rooftop. Romanoff pulled a gun from a holster on her other leg, but Penny didn’t stick around to find out what bullets felt like. This time, when she jumped off the roof, Wanda didn’t stop her, and Penny wondered how it could have gone so wrong so quickly.

\-----------

It’s strange how quickly things can fall apart.

Penny knew from the moment she got up in the morning that it was going to be a bad day. Hunger was so vicious in her stomach she could barely breathe, and she risked getting into major trouble by taking twice the amount of cereal. It barely even dented her hunger. The subway was too loud and too smelly and Penny didn’t seem to have the ability to filter the noise today. She shoved earplugs into her ears even though she hadn’t used them in almost two months.

Class was as boring as ever, and Penny couldn’t find it in herself to bother pretending to pay attention. By the end of second class she had detention after school, and didn’t care. She knew her face was showing how hollow she felt inside and even Ned, who had been putting extreme effort into ignoring her, was giving her looks. She didn’t care. She didn’t think she had anything left to care with. She was numb. Numb and hollow and dead inside.

She didn’t even respond when Flash threw spitballs at her, or put gum in her hair or kicked her chair. She didn’t even respond in the tiny, useless ways she usually responded when she was trying not to give him the satisfaction. She just didn’t care. She had nothing left to care with. She barely even noticed when Flash escalated and escalated and escalated, trying to get a response out of her.

Until Flash pinned her to the lockers in the hall. Until his breath was hot against the back of her neck and he was saying exquisitely cruel words to the crowded hall. “What’s up _Penis_? Too good to talk to me? Learned not to _spread your legs_ for anyone who asks have you? That’s why you stopped talking isn’t it? _Slut_.”

And Penny found she did have something left to care with, because rage was filling every single pore of her, rage worse than anything she’d ever felt before. Stronger than she’d felt last night, stronger than she’d ever, _ever_ felt, and she knew _exactly_ what she was doing when she pulled out of Flash’s grip, knew what she was doing when she pulled back her fist and slugged Flash in the gut, knew what she was doing when she pulled her knee up into his chin as he doubled over, knew what she was doing when she kicked him on the ground, and when she did it again, and again. And when Flash started begging and sobbing, she walked out of the hall, and out of the school, and then she ran.

It turned out she’d lied to Wanda last night. It turned out she could.

She hid in an alleyway, pulled her bag off her back, took the suit out and changed into it. It was broad daylight, and even as angry and desperate and, underneath, empty as Penny was, she shook with fear that someone might see. Not because she might lose her secret identity, but because she might lose something else. Something that had been taken before long ago. But she trusted her spidey instinct, and she had no other choice. She pulled the suit on, marvelling at how light and smooth and wonderful it felt. Then she took her old suit out of her bag, hid the bag behind a dumpster, and took to the rooftops. She ditched the suit in a different dumpster, blocks away, and then made for the train station. An hour later she was lying on top of a train heading out of New York, and feeling like she was leaving the rest of herself behind.

It’s strange how quickly life can fall apart. 24 hours of rage. A bullet in a late night hold-up. A single night being babysat. And it all comes apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on the rooftop scene, and Natasha and Wanda: Wanda doesn't actually think Penny hurt someone, and Natasha wasn't actually planning to shoot her, but everyone's temper was running high, especially Penny's, and Natasha doesn't do 'pinned down' very well.  
> And on Natasha spying on Penny for Tony: this isn't right, and I'm not saying it is. Tony (and Pepper) have gotten desperate at this point, and Natasha's loyalty is to those she cares about, which includes Tony, and by extension Penny, but not Spider Woman. So she'll spy on Penny to help Tony work out what's wrong, and she sees Spider Woman's silence as an obstacle to helping Tony. 
> 
> Also, Penny beating up Flash: I'm gonna come back to that later in the story, but this is a slightly darker Penny than the canon Peter, and she has had a very, very, very long week and Flash crossed like a hundred lines.
> 
> Sorry for the whole collection of angst and the cliffhanger. I promise it will start getting better soon!
> 
> Comments make me happy, even if they are screaming at me! :-)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which lots of plot happens and certain characters start actually talking about things.

Three days later, Penny lay curled on a rooftop in a city she couldn’t remember the name of, and acknowledged to herself that she’d messed up. She wasn’t sure at what point it had gone so wrong. If it was when she’d beaten up Flash Thompson using her enhanced strength, or if it was when Wanda had asked if she’d hurt someone, or when she’d thrown accusing words at Mr Stark, or when she’d realised Mr Stark had Romanoff spy on her. Or if maybe it had gone wrong longer ago, the moment she realised the spider-bite had changed her, decided to become a vigilante, and decided to keep it a secret. Or if, maybe, everything had been bound to go wrong for years.

Whenever it had gone irreparably wrong, Penny had messed up. She’d messed up when she fought with Ned and she’d messed up when she’d fought with Mr Stark and she’d messed up when she fought with Wanda and Natasha. She’d definitely messed up when she beat up Flash Thompson. When she used her enhanced strength to hurt someone who couldn’t defend himself, just as Flash had done to her for years. Penny wasn’t sure when she’d lost herself to the extent she could do that. She didn’t want to think how long ago it could have been.

She didn’t want to think about a lot of things.

Like the fact that she would be dead by now if the suit didn’t have a built in heater. That she might have died the first night. Like the fact that most of what she’d eaten for the last three days had come from the garbage, and it wasn’t nearly enough. Like the fact that she could see all her ribs at a glance and had been able to for over a month, because her enhanced metabolism needed more food than she’d been able to give it. Like the fact that she wasn’t doing fine. Like the fact that the negatives had outweighed the positives for a long time now, she just hadn’t wanted to admit it. Like the fact that she wasn’t ok. She hadn’t been for a very long time.

It’s strange how running away gives you space and time to think. Then again, Penny had been running away in one form or another for over four years. She didn’t think she knew how to stop by this point. She didn’t dare stop. Not emotionally, and not physically.

The only bright side to all of this was that Penny could fight crime to her hearts content. She no longer had school, or internship, or anything else other than surviving to take her time. Just fighting crime, running, and finding enough food to survive another day. Stopping the bad things from happening felt good. It eased the crippling weight of guilt for a few moments. Made the weight of the people she’d hurt sit a little less heavily. Ned, Miss Potts, Mr Stark, Wanda, Natasha, Flash.

She’d hurt all of them. She’d set out to stop bad things from happening, but instead she’d become the bad things.

Maybe that was why someone was hunting her.

She knew theywere there, the tingling feeling of being watched, or of a threat, had been drawing closer for almost a day now. No matter how quickly she moved, it still seemed to be faster.

It wasn’t imminent, not yet, Penny would feel in much more danger if it was. Unless whoever was hunting her didn’t mean her harm, but Penny didn’t think there was anyone left who cared about her enough to come after her. Not as Penny Parker, and not as Spider Woman. So whoever it was was still far off. She could risk sleeping for a few hours.

\--------------

Penny woke to crippling hunger and the realisation that she should not have risked sleeping for a few hours.

“Romanoff” she croaked, voice scratchy from three days of drinking little and crying too much.

“Hey” Romanoff said, voice surprisingly gentle.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came after you.”

“Why?” Penny asked. Why would she come after her and then not arrest her? They had hardly parted on good terms last time.

“Because I worked it out, and I realised I messed up. Don’t get me wrong, you did too, but I still messed up.”

“I don’t understand.” Penny said, and she didn’t. She didn’t understand at all.

“I worked out how Penny kept getting hurt, even though Pepper was sure her guardians weren’t abusing her, and how Spider Woman knew I’d been watching her, and why Spider Woman got so angry when I asked about Penny. Because they’re the same people aren’t they? Nobody was abusing you, you were just getting hurt patrolling.”

Horror washed over Penny, deeper than panic, deeper than desperation, just horror. No, she couldn’t know! She _couldn’t_. Because Penny Parker couldn’t talk, and Spider Woman could. So they couldn’t be the same person. They couldn’t. But when she opened her mouth to deny it, no sound came out.

Because Natasha knew she was Penny, and Penny didn’t talk.

She shook her head in useless denial, already knowing the battle was lost. Her voice hadn’t failed her in the suit for months, and before that only once, and that not even fully. But now she couldn’t voice a single syllable, her throat tight and useless, because Penny Parker didn’t talk.

“Take the mask off Penny. Let me help you.”

Penny shook her head, half in refusal, half in useless denial. She wasn’t even sure if she was trying to deny her identity or trying to deny the way her voice wouldn’t work. She hadn’t realised just how much she’d valued it until it was suddenly gone again.

“Please Penny, you’re 14. You’re 14 and you’ve lost enough already, let someone help you.”

“No one can help me.” Penny signed, and the signs almost physically hurt, because they indicated defeat. Penny Parker didn’t talk.

“You’re wrong. I can help. Tony can help. Pepper can help. They miss you, they’ve both been going mad searching for you. I haven’t told them yet. I thought you should have the opportunity to tell them yourself, and I didn’t think them knowing you were out there trying to take on the entire criminal world single-handedly would help them much.” Natasha signed back, abandoning verbal communication.

“Why do they even care? Why do you care? I thought you hated me.”

Natasha winced “I didn’t hate you, I just saw you as an obstacle. I thought you were keeping something from me that could help Penny, and I promised Tony I’d work out who was hurting you.”

Penny shook her head again, unable to make that make sense in her mind “Why do they care?”

“Because they love you you little _idiot!_ ”

“Miss Potts says I’m a genius.” Penny signed, because she couldn’t make that sentence make sense in her mind.

“Well you’re the dumbest genius I’ve ever met, and I work with Tony Stark!”

“But I’m just an intern.”

“Are Tony and Pepper just your bosses?”

Penny shook her head, because of _course_ they weren’t just her bosses, Mr Stark hadn’t been for a _months,_ and Miss Potts, Penny hadn’t seen nearly as much of Miss Potts, but she knew she wasn’t just her boss.

“There you go then.”

“But I hurt them.”

“Tony hurt you too. _We_ hurt you too.”

Penny didn’t answer, because it was true. Mr Stark had hurt her and she’d still cared. It wouldn’t have hurt so much if she hadn’t.

“What happens now?” she asked instead.

“Now I find you some normal clothes to wear, and we go back to New York.”

Penny shook her head, shuddering at the thought “I can’t go back. I don’t have anywhere to live. The Prescotts won’t let me come back, there’s a no violence rule. Or at least, a no getting caught rule.”

Natasha snorted at that, then sobered and said “Tony and Pepper are fostering you.”

Penny gaped at the woman, her jaw involuntarily hitting the ground. The words had been so casual, so matter of fact, as if she hadn’t just said something earth shaking.

“Don’t look at me like that, they’ve been trying for ages, but they couldn’t get cleared to foster. Something about dangerous environments. It was why we were so desperate to work out who was hurting you, because without proof we couldn’t get you away. That and we were 85% sure it wasn’t the Prescotts, so getting you away from them wasn’t likely to help. Ironically, you beating another kid up and then disappearing off the face of the planet actually got Tony and Pepper cleared. They made a case that at least they’d realised something was wrong, which was more than anyone else had done. They got cleared to foster, and they got cleared to foster you.”

Penny was silent, her hands limp in stunned shock in her lap. Natasha just waited her out, until finally, she managed “They want to foster me?”

“Yeah kid, if you haven’t noticed, they’re kind of fond of you, and rather persistent about looking after you. So what do you say Penny? Want to go home?”

Home. That sounded good. That sounded really good.

She nodded.

“Great, because I wasn’t planning on letting you say no. Are you going to take the mask off?”

Penny hesitated, and then took it off. The early-morning light hit made her blink hard, surprised at the brightness of daylight after three days of wearing dark lenses constantly.

“How did you work it out?” she signed when she could see again.

Natasha hesitated, then she signed slowly, and almost apologetically “When I heard what Flash said to you, what made you snap. It was the last piece, and it all suddenly fell into place.”

Penny didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t want to think about what Flash had said, or how he knew or how many others now knew. She didn’t want to think about what she’d done after he said it.

“I’m going to get you some less conspicuous clothes to wear on the journey back, are you still going to be here when I get back?”

Penny nodded.

“Good, because I will _not_ be pleased if I have to track you down again.” the tone of her voice indicated that Penny would not be pleased with the result either, and she gulped.

“I’ll be here.” she signed, then “How did you track me down anyway?”

The Black Widow just smirked, and the swung out over the edge of the roof and climbed down. Penny spent a moment wondering how Natasha scaled a wall without being a mutant that stuck to things, and then decided she shouldn’t ask. She’d only get that smirk again. She picked up the mask and put it back on, deciding that there was no point letting her nose and ears freeze before she had to. The weather was warming up but it was still plenty cold.

\---------------

Natasha returned with underwear, a T-shirt, jeans, thermal pants and shirt, thick socks, a jumper, her coat, and the trainers she’d left stuffed in her school bag behind a dumpster. Evidently it had been located.

“This should all fit. I figured you’d want the thermals, Wanda commented once that you always seemed cold.”

“Spiders can’t thermoregulate.” Penny signed, feeling her stomach twist as she realised she was going to have to get changed in broad daylight again.

“You’re not a spider. Climb down into the alley, I’ll keep watch for you. Nobody will see. I promise.”

Under the mask, Penny flushed with embarrassment at being so obvious. “I got bitten by one, a radioactive one I think. At Oscorp.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow “You were the one who sent that anonymous tip.”

“I figured anything that makes a spider that can do that to a person is probably dodgy.” She eyed up the edge of the roof and gathered her courage.

Natasha snorted “Well you weren’t wrong.”

Penny gave a brief smile under the mask, and climbed off the side of the roof, walking down on all fours. Natasha dropped the bag of clothes off the roof for her to catch, and then followed her, turning around. “I’ll keep watch.” she repeated.

Penny changed as quickly as she could, but it still felt like it took eternity, and not because of the cold. She didn’t put the new underwear on, even though she felt disgusting from not changing her’s for three days. But changing underwear in an alley was a step too far, and she couldn’t bear to even think of it. She put the rest on as quickly as she could, and almost moaned at the feel of the thermals against her skin. She could really have done with a set of these in winter.

She tapped Natasha on the shoulder when she was done, and reluctantly surrendered the suit when the woman reached for it. Even with the seriously bad circumstances, she’d loved using that suit.

“Relax, I’ll give it back. Or give it back to Tony anyway, it’s probably his decision now.”

Penny gave a weak smile, and tried not to think about facing Mr Stark and Miss Potts. But she couldn’t help thinking of the last time she’d seen each of them. Miss Potts knowing she was mad at her, and running away because she didn’t know how to respond to being hugged. The things she’d said to Mr Stark. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face them.

Natasha had a motorbike. Somehow, that didn’t surprise Penny. What did surprise, and delight, her, was that she intended to drive it back and Penny got to ride it with her. Which wasn’t quite as fun as swinging, but was still pretty fun. Even if she made Penny wear a helmet and sit in front so “I can hold you on if you decide to bail.”

Penny hadn’t been planning on any such thing, but admitted to herself that it wasn’t completely unthinkable that she might get nervous and decide she couldn’t face Mr Stark and Miss Potts.

And she _was_ nervous, even if she didn’t try to bail (she had _some_ common sense left, even if not much of it). The drive took almost six hours, and they stopped four times for food when Penny’s stomach rumbled, even though Penny signed that she didn’t want to be a bother. After the second time Natasha told her in very firm tones that she wasn’t a bother, and even if she was, eating enough was a need, and one she had very clearly been neglecting at that, and to shut up and finish her sandwich. Penny shut up and finished her sandwich.

Somehow, despite the six hour drive, they arrived in New York way too soon. Natasha parked the bike around the back of Avengers Tower, and led her in a side entrance Penny had never seen before. She then lead her briskly to the elevator and asked Friday to take them up. Friday did so, and Penny abruptly realised that Friday had probably told Mr Stark and Miss Potts that they were there, and her last chance to run was gone. But then again, Natasha had probably told them earlier, and Penny didn’t really want to run. Just hide where she wouldn’t have to face them. She pressed herself into the corner of the elevator, wishing she could slow it down, have more time to prepare.

“Hey, Penny, it’s going to be ok. They may be mad, but they’ll forgive you.”

Penny lifted her hands to sign something, but they were shaking too much and she realised she didn’t know what to sign anyway.

“I’m going to put my arm around you, is that ok? It’s fine if not.”

Penny thought about it for an instant, and then twitched away from the wall a little, and Natasha understood it for the permission it was, and gently tugged her away from the elevator wall until she could wrap an arm around Penny’s shoulders in a one armed hug.

“We’ll do it together, ok?”

Penny nodded jerkily, pressing close to her as the lift doors pinged open. Natasha started walking, gently pulling her along with her, and they stepped out onto Mr Stark and Miss Potts’ floor. Two pairs of running footsteps approached rapidly, and then Penny was being pulled out of Natasha’s side hug and into Miss Potts.  
  


“Penny! Oh thank goodness! Don’t you _ever_ do that again, do you understand me? We’ve been worried sick! You’re in so much trouble! Oh I can’t believe you’re ok!” and then Penny was being pulled into another hug, and Miss Potts was kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair and Penny was signing “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again with the hand that wasn’t clinging to Miss Potts, and she was melting into the hug even as tears slipped down her face.

“Hey kid, do I get a hug?” Mr Stark said, and Penny pulled out of the hug to hug Mr Stark instead, and only hesitated a moment. Mr Stark wouldn’t hurt her.

“Penny’s got something she needs to tell you, don’t you.” Natasha said, giving Penny a significant look, and Penny swallowed nervously. She tried to beg Natasha with her eyes to do it for her, but the Avenger shook her head. “Nope, you’ve got to do this one yourself kid. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“Penny? What is she talking about?” Miss Potts asked.

Penny rocked nervously back and forth on her feet, and shot Natasha another pleading look, but the Avenger just shook her head. Penny gulped, and gathered her courage, and made her hands sign “I’m Spider Woman.”

There was a moment of dead silence, and then Friday repeated what it was obvious both adults had already understood anyway, and then they both spoke at once.

“You’re _what_? But Spider Woman’s life is so dangerous! Nononononono.”

“Oh that makes so much sense! Oh but that’s so dangerous! What were you _thinking_?”

And then, in tandem, they said the words Penny had been dreading from the moment Natasha revealed she knew.

“But Spider Woman can talk?!?”

Penny burst into tears.

\-----------

Both Mr Stark and Miss Potts backtracked at once, saying they could talk about it later, but once she’d started crying Penny knew, from bitter experience, that she wouldn’t be able to stop. She instinctively backed towards the elevator, and getting out of the Tower, but Natasha stepped deftly into her way, shaking her head.

“Nope, you’re not running off again.”

Penny reversed directions, bolting down the hall past Miss Potts and into the room she’d slept that night a week ago. It felt like so much longer than a week. Everything had changed, everything had fallen apart, but the lock still clicked reassuringly shut after her. She shoved a chair under the door handle to be on the safe side, fairly sure that Friday could unlock doors, and then she curled up in a ball on the bed and stopped fighting the sobs wrenching out of her. Everything that had been boiling over since that shattering moment when Wanda had asked Spider Woman if she’d hurt Penny Parker poured out of her, tearing through her body as she sobbed for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few days.

Guilt and fear and hurt tangled through her in equal measure, remembering Wanda’s voice as she lost her sole remaining friend, remembering the cruelty in Flash’s voice as he spoke vicious words into the crowded hall and the blurry faces she hadn’t dared look at as she beat him to the floor. Remembered how good it had felt to hit Flash, to hurt him, and the horror she’d felt when she thought back on what she’d done as she turned her bully into a victim. She remembered the despair that had washed over her as she realised she would be kicked out of the Prescotts, and the last pieces of her life would be taken away, and the terrible clarity that she had nothing left to stay for, and the cold and the hunger and fear of sleeping rough.

Dimly she heard Friday enquire if she was ok, and Mr Stark pound on the door, and Natasha call him away, but they seemed dim and distant compared the the storm of her emotions as they took over.

She cried until her head pounded and her throat felt like sandpaper and her stomach ached and there were no tears left in her. And then she stared up at the ceiling without really seeing it and fell asleep and dreamed of the shock on Flash Thompson’s face when she punched him and the way blood had splattered from his nose onto the floor as she kicked his body. Wanda’s voice floated into the dream ‘I thought you said you would never?’ and Penny woke up with a start, soaked with sweat and cheeks damp with tears.

She made herself get off the bed, her body protesting the movements. Her knees buckled for a moment when she stood up, and she wondered if it was all finally catching up on her. Her healing hadn’t been working fully for weeks, and it had been slowing down drastically ever since she’d started being able to count her ribs without pressing on her ribcage. She could count her ribs through a tee-shirt, thermal, and jumper now. She still had the bruises from fighting Natasha on the rooftop four nights ago, now layered over with more bruises from fighting criminals and webbing through unfamiliar streets, not to mention sleeping on rooftops. Her healing had evidently given up entirely.

Her stuff was put away neatly in one of the drawers. Someone had clearly been to the Prescotts to pick it all up, and Penny felt her cheeks burn at the thought of someone packing up her stuff and realising how old and worn most of her stuff was. Almost all of her stuff she’d owned before uncle Ben died, she’d only really had new shoes since then, and that because her old ones had literally fallen apart. She’d tried to scavenge and manage for herself, but she hadn’t managed very well. There had always been more important things than the fact that her clothes were getting threadbare. But the thought of Mr Stark or Miss Potts, or most likely some employee they’d sent, who’d probably never had to go through dumpsters for materials, packing and unpacking her stuff made her cheeks burn. Never the less she was grateful for it, grateful to have something familiar to wear. She grabbed some clothes and bit her lip as she looked at the door, torn between wanting to get the feel of her nightmare off her, and not wanting to venture out from behind the safety of a locked door.

But she couldn’t hide forever, and she hated the feeling of sweat on her skin, like her nightmare was coated on her body, so she cautiously removed the chair from under the door and opened it.

The hallway was empty, a clock on the wall telling her it was eight in the evening. It felt a long way from the icy chill of the morning when she’d woken to Romanoff sitting next to her on a rooftop. She padded as quietly as she could to the bathroom, and locked herself in. It was a relief to strip off her damp clothes, despite the mostly unfamiliar environment, and she hopped in the shower. It heated up as quickly as it had last time, and Penny took a moment to appreciate the hot water against her skin. She washed quickly, wincing internally as she noticed anew how her skin stretched over her ribs, and how her bones were a lot more visible than they used to be. She dried herself off and dressed quickly afterwards, relaxing a little at the familiarity of the smell of her own clothes, even though they weren’t as warm as the thermals Natasha had given her. She was careful to gather the clothes up with her towel, not sure if they were hers to keep but not wanting to just leave them lying around either way.

Miss Potts was waiting for her outside, a few metres away from the door, clearly trying to look non-threatening. She glanced at the clothes in Penny’s arms and gestured back into the bathroom. “There’s a laundry hamper in the corner.”

Penny nodded and retreated back into the bathroom, locating the hamper and dropping the clothes in, before awkwardly emerging again. Miss Potts gestured in the direction of the kitchen “Come and eat something. It’s just us, Tony got called away for an Assemble and probably won’t be back until morning at the earliest.”

Penny nodded, hoping he and Natasha and Wanda were ok. Her heart fell at the thought of Wanda. _‘Is it you? Are you hurting her?’_ But Penny didn’t want to think about that.

Miss Potts directed her to sit at the kitchen island and started heating up some soup, passing a massive bowl of it to her along with several thick slices of bread. “Nat says you need to eat a lot, and that you’re more under-weight than you look.” she observed, her voice observational rather than critical. Penny didn’t answer.

She gulped down both soup and bread, but when Miss Potts asked if she wanted some more her hands signed back “Did you know?” rather than ‘no thank you’.

Miss Potts blinked, and then said “No, I had no idea until you told us.”

Penny shook her head. She hadn’t meant to say it but she knew that wasn’t what she’d meant. “Did you know Natasha was spying on me?” she clarified.

Miss Potts winced, and Penny knew the answer. She dropped her gaze to her empty bowl, tears welling in her eyes despite the fact that she’d suspected it.

“Yes, I knew.” Miss Potts said after a moment, her voice heavy. “I’m sorry, it was an invasion of your privacy.”

Penny thought of the burning betrayal when she’d heard Natasha talking to Mr Stark and how humiliating it had been knowing Natasha was watching Flash torment her. Her eyes burned and she clenched her fists in her lap.

“Penny?” Miss Potts asked tentatively, and Penny couldn’t stop her hands from rising, and the words flowing through them

“I trusted Mr Stark. I trusted you.”

Miss Potts winced again “I’m sorry.” she offered, her voice a little useless.

But Miss Potts could be making excuses about how they’d thought someone was hurting Penny. She could have said that she and Mr Stark were just trying to help. She could be justifying what she’d done on frankly sensible grounds, and Penny appreciated that she wasn’t. She appreciated that Miss Potts wasn’t excusing the fact that she’d hurt her.

“I’m sorry too,” she offered back “I’m sorry I left when you hugged me. And I’m sorry I ran away and worried you.”

“It’s alright, I don’t know if I’d have done much different in your position.” Miss Potts said, before her voice grew stern “But if you ever run away again you will be in _deep_ trouble do you understand?”

Penny nodded hastily.

“Good” Miss Potts said, sounding normal again. Then “What did Nat tell you about what happened after you ran?”

Penny risked a nervous glance at up at Miss Potts to see the woman looking unusually nervous “She said you fostered me?” she signed.

“Yes, but only if you want to. We won’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here.”

“I do.” Penny signed quickly. Too quickly, and she felt her face flush with embarrassment, but for an instant she’d been frightened she’d be sent away. “I do want to be here. Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank us, this is your home now.”

Penny didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t say anything. Miss Potts cleared her throat after a moment. “That’s most of the important stuff. Your social worker brought your stuff from the Prescotts house, although she had a few choice words to say about how little they were worried about you.”

Penny just shrugged, she’d long ago accepted that the Prescotts didn’t really have the time or energy to care about her. She’d mostly tried not to think about it.

“I went to talk to your school once we’d been cleared to foster you. Tony wanted to go but he was a little too angry to deal with it sensibly or rationally, so I got Rhodey to keep him busy while I went. You’ve been suspended for two weeks I’m afraid.”

“I haven’t been expelled?!?” Penny signed, shocked.

Miss Potts shook her head “That hallway Thompson attacked you in had a security camera in it, and audio, and several of your classmates came forward about his systematic bullying. Said that you weren’t around to defend yourself but Thompson had gone too far. He’s been suspended for two weeks as well, I made sure of it.”

There was a grim fury in Miss Pott’s voice that somehow made Penny feel warm inside. She wondered what things would have been like if she’d had someone like Miss Potts on her side years ago when Flash had first started picking on her and she’d found that teachers didn’t really want to hear about the fact that the rich kid whose dad held weight around the school was picking on someone. She’d only tried to report him once, and had never dared again. Flash had been horrible afterwards. But then she thought about punching Flash, about socking him in the stomach and driving her knee into his chin and nose and kicking him on the ground and felt sick. She was no better.

She thought of what Flash had said into the crowded hall and felt sicker. How many of her classmates now knew? How many had already known? How had Flash known? Did people really think she’d wanted it? But Penny didn’t think about that.

“Are you mad?” she asked instead.

“About what?” Miss Potts asked.

Penny shrugged “Any of it. All of it. I beat a kid up. I ran away. I didn’t tell you about being Spider Woman.” she didn’t mention the fact that she wasn’t talking, that she couldn’t talk. Just the thought of raising it made her breath catch. She didn’t know why Spider Woman could talk. She couldn’t explain it. She had no answers to give.

“No, I’m not. Nor is Tony. Nobody is mad Penny. Things have been hard for you, we get that. Do I wish you’d come to us, to anybody, for help, yes. But we’re not mad and we’re not going to punish you for anything that happened. We’ll talk about rules later, but for now, I just want you to know we’re not mad.”

Penny nodded, feeling tension she hadn’t known she was carrying fade into relief.

“Penny? May I hug you?”

Penny thought about it for a moment and then nodded, wriggling off the stool and meeting Miss Potts halfway. The hug was gentle but warm and safe and Penny melted into it. It was so much better than the momentary hug Miss Potts had given her at the subway station when she’d felt so lost and hurt and confused, and Penny hadn’t realised until then just how much she’d missed physical touch. It wasn’t that nobody had ever touched her, because she and Ned nudged each other and play-fought and they had their handshakes and sometimes they’d hug (when people weren’t around to mock them for it), but it had been a long time since an adult had just held her for the sake of it. It had been a long, long time since she’d been able to just relax into someone older and wiser and trust them to hold her up. It felt good. It felt like she was finally safe.

It felt like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less angsty chapter! Although Penny isn't out of the woods yet, there is more angst coming. (Seriously, this fic is the angstyest thing I've ever written).
> 
> Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented! I loved reading all of them! Just a note for the future though, could you not swear using God's name in the comments? It makes me quite uncomfortable because I'm a Christian, and I believe God is real, and someone we can (and do) have a relationship with, and I don't like hearing the name of someone I love and seek to respect in my life used like that. Sorry if this is annoying. 
> 
> Comments still make me happy :-)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of spaces, old and new.

Miss Potts, who was now insisting she call her Pepper, made her eat another bowl of soup and then sent her to bed. For once Penny slept through the night without nightmares and woke up feeling actually refreshed. She emerged from her room dressed in sweatpants, an old science tee-shirt and a baggy hoody and found Mr Stark inhaling waffles at the counter looking tired but healthy.

“Hey kid, have some waffles, they’re good.”

Penny bit her lip nervously, but reminded herself that Pepper had said Mr Stark wasn’t mad, so she padded properly into the kitchen and piled a few waffles on a plate and hopped up on a stool at the island. Mr Stark gestured at the various toppings on the island and she put maple syrup on the waffles, and then because she thought she should probably worry about nutrients more, added some raspberries on top of that. She gulped the food down quickly, trying to satisfy the ever complaining animal scratching at the insides of her stomach. Mr Stark gestured at the waffles again when she was done and Penny’s cheeks flushed.

“Stop looking embarrassed kid, who knows how much energy your metabolism burns through in a day. Eat.”

Penny didn’t know how much energy she burned through in a day, but she suspected it was a _lot_. She didn’t think she’d ever take not feeling hungry for granted again. She took another few waffles. “Thanks Mr Stark.” she signed, getting the usual groan of “It’s Tony!”

Penny shot him a teasing grin, and Mr Stark shook his head in exasperation. “I’ll wear you down kid. You can’t keep calling me Mr Stark forever, you literally live with us. I’m your foster dad! Not that you have to call me dad! That’s not what I...uh, I mean, ah, you don’t have to call me anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Penny snorted with amusement as Mr Stark put his foot in his mouth and then struggled to pull it out again, but he did make a good point. As fun as teasing Mr Stark was, and as strange as it felt to call Iron Man by his first name, he was fostering her. It would be weird to stay so formal, even if it _was_ teasing. Tony. She tested the name out carefully in her head and decided it didn’t sound too strange. She’d try signing it later. For now, she smiled at Tony to show she wasn’t upset about the ‘dad’ comment and busied her hands with her waffles.

By the time she’d finished the second plate of waffles she was feeling actually full (although she knew it wouldn’t last, in a couple of hours she’d be painfully hungry again, but she’d enjoy it while it lasted) and Pepper had reappeared from somewhere and started shooing Tony off to sleep. Penny had to bite her lip to hide her amusement at the indignation on Tony’s face (and at the fact that Tony was nevertheless letting himself be shooed off to bed).

When Pepper was done with Tony she came back to the kitchen where Penny was finishing washing up hers and Tony’s plates and cutlery.

“Oh thanks sweetie, you didn’t need to do that.”

“I don’t mind helping.” Penny signed.

“Well thanks anyway.” Pepper said. Penny realised for the first time (even though she really should have realised earlier) that Friday wasn’t repeating anything aloud anymore. When had Pepper learned to sign? How quickly had she learnt? Then again, this was _Pepper Potts_ , if anyone could learn to sign over a long weekend while gaining custody of a kid and fighting with a school and keeping a company afloat, it was her. And learning to interpret a language was easier than learning to ‘speak’ it.

“Ok, well I need to go back to the office in a few minutes, but your school sent some work for you to do. You could come and do it at my office or you could do it here, it’s your choice.”

Penny thought about it for a moment. She didn’t really want to deal with the questions if business people saw a kid in Miss Potts office. “Here?” she signed.

“OK. Here, this is yours. There wasn’t a laptop among your things and you know what Tony’s like. This is yours now. Your school said they emailed you the work.”

Penny nodded distractedly, mind still mostly caught on the fact that Tony had just casually given her a laptop like it wasn’t the most expensive gift she’d ever been given (except Spider Woman’s suit, but that wasn’t really given to Penny, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to use it again, but that was a depressing thought so she tried not to think about it.). Uncle Ben had never been able to afford to get her a laptop to work on, so she’d never had one all her own to use before. The Prescotts had a couple of shared computers for their foster kids to use, but there was always competition to actually get to use them, and she’d generally just gone to use the library computers.

Pepper gave her a quick hug and double checked she was ok, and then disappeared back downstairs leaving Penny with a laptop, a pad of paper and way more pens than she needed, especially given she still had all her school stuff in her backpack which someone had clearly rescued from where she’d left it behind a dumpster.

The laptop worked like a dream and Penny spent almost an hour playing with it before she guiltily remembered she was supposed to be working. The work came in the form of several different emails from several different teachers, and was all predictably boring except for the math worksheet from one of her nicer teachers who had sent her something more interesting to do. She raced through the boring work, slowed down and actually had to use her brain on the math worksheet, and finished just before Friday relayed a message from Pepper that she was stuck in a meeting and that there should be something in the fridge to reheat for lunch. Penny found some leftover spaghetti and sauce and inhaled it, and supplemented it with two sandwiches, after which she felt something approaching full. Her metabolism kind of sucked.

She went back to her room after lunch to search through her stuff until she found the advanced math textbook from Midtown library, and dug into the college level math until she felt like she’d actually used her brain. Being suspended was actually kind of fun. Except for the fact that she’d beat up Flash Thompson using her Spider Woman strength. That still made Penny feel like she was going to be sick.

Tony emerged sleepily from his room sometime after three and ordered enough food from the cafeteria downstairs to make Penny eat twice as much as he was eating. Penny flushed but didn’t refuse the food. The feeling of not being very literally painfully hungry felt alien, but she was rapidly growing very fond of it.

“You done with your school work?”

Penny nodded.

“Interesting?”

Penny shrugged, grimacing a little.

Tony snorted “You really should skip a few grades, you must be bored out of your mind in class.”

Penny shrugged, “I want to stay with Ned.” she signed back, like she always had before. But her heart sank as she remembered all over again that Ned wasn’t speaking to her.

Except maybe he was now? Penny had glanced at her phone when she’d pulled it out of her schoolbag to get her books, and she’d seen 100+ missed calls and messages. Maybe some of them were from Ned? Maybe he wasn’t so mad anymore? Penny felt bad at the thought that maybe she’d made Ned worry about her when she’d run away and he wouldn’t be mad anymore, but hope still burned in her chest.

“Can I go see Ned?” she asked before she could think better of it.

“Course, you’re not a prisoner here. Just let us know if you’re going out, and where you’re going, and uh, be back at 10pm? And don’t, please, run off again.”

Penny flushed “I won’t” she promised, and she meant it.

Things weren’t perfect, not by a long, long shot, but all the things which had felt overwhelming and impossible to fix four days ago seemed less so now. Nothing seemed as bad when she was warm and full, and what happened at Midtown didn’t seem so unbearable when balanced against the fact that she never had to go back to the Prescotts. Even the fact that nothing had been said about Spider Woman (and the background fear about when the fact that Spider Woman could talk but Penny Parker couldn’t was going to be raised. They couldn’t ignore it forever, and when it was raised, Penny would still have no answers to give.) didn’t seem so bad when balanced with the fact that Pepper and Tony had fostered her, and they cared enough to make sure she had enough to eat for her advanced metabolism.

“Can I go this afternoon? After he gets back from school?” Penny checked.

“Sure kid, Happy can drive you.”

Penny shook her head “Thanks Tony, but I’d kind of like to take the subway if that’s ok?”

“Uh, sure, yeah, that’s fine.” Tony said, although Penny had a sneaking suspicion the man hadn’t heard anything after ‘Tony’. She ducked her head to hide her grin and went to grab her stuff to head towards Ned’s. It was already half past three, and by the time she got across the city to Queens Ned would have been home for a while.

“Take your phone!” Tony called after her, apparently having gotten over her having finally used his first name.

Penny tucked it into her pocket before she left, along with her subway pass, and got into the lift. Friday took her down to the ground floor and gave her directions to the more discrete entrance the Avengers tended to use. Natasha had taken her in that way, but she’d been too distracted at the time to remember the way.

She went through her phone on the subway across the city, finding dozens of texts from Tony, Pepper and Ned, along with a fair few from the Prescotts and her social worker. She’d probably get a visit from the last before long, but Penny would worry about that when it came. As well as the texts she had almost 30 missed calls, which was a staggering number given she never made or picked up phone calls (facetime yes, but not phone calls). Four of them (along with 43 of the texts) were from Ned. It made Penny feel a little less scared that Ned was going to slam the door in her face and a lot more guilty about how worried Ned must have been.

It took her almost ten minutes to work up the courage to actually knock on the door, and when she did she lost the nerve halfway through her signature knock and would have run away except for the pounding footsteps she could hear bolting towards the door. And then it was being flung open and Ned was dragging her into his apartment and pulling her into a hug only to swear (actually swear, even though Ned swore almost as rarely as she did) and choke out that “I can feel all your ribs! Are you ok? What happened to you? I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have left you alone I’m so mmfph”

The last was because Penny had put her hand over his mouth to cut off his babbling. “I’m sorry” she signed when Ned had stopped trying to talk. “I’m sorry I said those things and I’m sorry I scared you and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and I’m just so _sorry_ Ned. I really am, I’m so sorry.”

Ned shook his head, catching at her hands like she’d put her hand over his mouth “ _You’re_ sorry?! I _knew_ someone was hurting you and I _left you alone_.”

Penny shrugged “I said some _really_ horrible things.”

“That doesn’t make it ok.” Ned said miserably.

“Then lets just call it quits. We made up, lets just forget about it. Please?” Penny begged. She didn’t want to think about the fight with Ned, or what she’d said or how utterly alone and miserable she’d felt afterwards.

Ned hesitated, then nodded, and Penny felt a weight fall off her shoulders, even as Ned’s acceptance was followed by a flood of questions.

“Where have you _been?_ You’ve been gone for four days! Police came to talk to me to ask if I knew where you were! Wait! Do they know where you are? Are you hiding from the police?” Ned started tugging her nervously away from the window and Penny felt a sudden rush of affection for her best friend. If she’d come to him the day she’d run away he probably would have hidden her in his room and tried to sneak her food.

“I’m not hiding from the police.” she signed “I got back last night, Natasha tracked me down. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I kind of just crashed and slept, and then I didn’t really look at my phone this morning.”

“Who’s Natasha?”

Penny hesitated “Are your parents home?” she checked.

Ned shook his head impatiently, curiosity making his eyes widen.

“Natasha Romanoff” Penny admitted.

Ned’s jaw dropped open and his eyes went so wide Penny was genuinely concerned for a moment that his eyes might drop out. His hands rose and fell and rose and fell as he tried to recover the ability to speak. Penny just waited him out.

“An _Avenger_ came after you?” Ned finally squeaked out, apparently giving up on signing.

“Yes, and uh, Mr Stark and Miss Potts are kind of fostering me?” Penny signed, and Ned went right back into shock. He didn’t seem to be coming out of it anytime soon either, so Penny flicked him in the forehead a few times until he started talking, and then patiently waited out his babbling about Mr Stark and Avengers and this-is-so-unbelievably-cool. When he finally slowed down, Penny tried to get her hands to work to tell him the rest, but she couldn’t quite do it. It took a moment for Ned to realise, but when he did his babbling properly cut off.

“Pen, are you ok? Is, they haven’t, they’re not, they’re not hurting you are they?”

Penny shook her head violently, and finally managed to raise her hands “No, it’s ok, they’d never hit me, not like that anyway.” she added because Natasha had technically hit her (or pinned her down anyway) several times, and she’d sparred with Wanda a couple of times before it had become painfully clear Wanda would never be able to hold her own without her powers.

Ned bit his lip and then asked very, very nervously “Were the Prescotts?”

It was the perfect opening to explain everything, and she wasn’t going to get a better one, but it still took Penny more willpower than she wanted to admit not to just shake her head and leave it there. “I’m Spider Woman” she signed, for the second time in two days, but it hadn’t gotten any easier. But once she’d started signing she couldn’t stop “I’m Spider Woman and that was why I was hurt and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and I know Spider Woman can talk and I know I can’t but please don’t ask why because I don’t _know_! _I don’t_ _ **know**_.”

Ned blinked once, then twice and then asked rather faintly “Anything else I don’t know?”

Penny’s hands fell abruptly still, and she thought about it “I’m sort of friends with the Scarlet Witch?”

“Ok, anything else?”

“No? I think that’s it.”

“Right” Ned said, “lets go play computer games for an hour until I stop feeling like this is a very surreally realistic dream. Then we can talk.”

Penny swallowed her laughter only with an extreme effort of will and felt another rush of affection for her best friend. She followed him into his bedroom and flopped down on her usual spot on the beanbag chair and grabbed a controller, and felt another piece of her world settle back into place.

\-------------

She didn’t return to the tower until late evening, telling Pepper she was staying for dinner when she texted. Ned’s parents were happy to see her back, and they mostly didn’t make a fuss after Ned hissed at them to stop asking questions. Which was good because for an instant Penny had wanted to jump out of the window to run away from the questions.

Pepper had said to text her when she wanted to go so Happy could pick her up, but Penny took the subway back instead. The thought of being picked up and dropped off places like she was some fragile doll that needed to be looked after all the time didn’t sit right with her. She’d looked after herself fine for over nine months, she wasn’t going to break. She pointedly didn’t think about being hit in the head and ribs with a crowbar, or the fractured bones and serious bruises from stopping the skidding truck, or being ambushed and beat up, or the cold and hunger she hadn’t been able to deal with. She’d been alive, and she’d been ok. She wasn’t some fragile doll that would break. She was fine.

Pepper and Tony were in the kitchen eating what looked like a very late dinner when she got back. The grease stains on Tony’s tee-shirt indicated he’d been working in his lab and had probably been dragged out with Pepper. Pepper was wearing sweatpants and a hoody, and it was so jarring Penny almost tripped over her own feet. Aside from when she’d had a nightmare, and seen Pepper wearing pyjamas, she didn’t think she’d ever seen the CEO wearing anything even approaching casual. It made the world feel a little unreal to see _Pepper Potts_ wearing lounge clothes and slouching at the kitchen island slurping spaghetti.

Penny tried to rationalise it to herself by reminding herself that it made sense, Pepper couldn’t possibly spend all her time ready to jump into a boardroom, she’d go insane. But it still felt like something solid had been pulled out from under her, another piece of what had been normal now gone. And it was something so small, so silly, but all of a sudden she felt how everything was unfamiliar, everything was different. She’d only really been in this space a few times, and she didn’t really know her way around, she’d been given a tour that night she’d stayed over, but it had been fast and it felt like a long, long time ago. This wasn’t a space she knew, it wasn’t a space she belonged in. The gleaming counters and massive windows felt so, so far away from the small, worn space of the bedroom that had been her hiding place at the Prescotts, and even further away from the apartment she’d shared with uncle Ben, where she knew every little corner. They’d spent half their time struggling to make ends meet and most of the stuff in the apartment had been worn or already fixed twice but it had been cosy and familiar and safe and uncle Ben had been there.

Penny breathed in slowly and quietly, trying to force down the tears that were suddenly stinging her eyes. She didn’t know if it was the new place or Pepper wearing lounge clothes or being at Ned’s home which was almost as familiar as uncle Ben’s had been, but she suddenly desperately missed things she knew, things that were familiar, things she’d moved around a hundred times before and could trust to always be the same.

But nothing really stayed the same did it? Life could fall apart impossibly fast. A gunshot in a terror-filled shop, a couple of sentences on an icy rooftop, a fist swung in a crowded hallway, one night too many being babysat, but Penny didn’t think about that. Nothing good would ever come of thinking about that.

She tried to back away before anyone could see her, but she backed into a little table by the side of the hall and the sound made Tony and Pepper turn towards her and all Penny could do was try not to look like she was trying to hide. She tried not to think about how that wouldn’t have happened in a space she was familiar with.

“Hey kid, come eat something, you must be starving. How was Ned’s?”

Penny fidgeted “It was good. We played this new video game he’s got. I ate at his though.”

“Did you eat enough?” Pepper asked.

Penny nodded her head even though she hadn’t eaten nearly enough to satisfy her hunger. The hunger felt easier to deal with than the big unfamiliar space at the moment though. “Can I go to bed?” she signed.

A flash of worry crossed Pepper’s face before she masked it, but she nodded. “Tell Friday to get us if there’s anything you need ok? And there’s food in the fridge if you get hungry overnight.”

Penny nodded her understanding and tried to walk normally back to her room. When she got there though the space felt even less familiar than the kitchen had, and she found herself irrationally missing the cramped space she’d had at the Prescotts. At least that had been familiar. Everything here felt big and strange. Everything was sleek lines and expensive furniture, and she wished it was more like her room at uncle Ben’s had been. But that was ungrateful. Tony and Pepper had done so much for her, and she didn’t know what she’d have done without them. But this was strange and new and different and she didn’t think she liked it.

She pulled on her old, worn hoody and curled up on the bed, trying to focus on the familiar smell of the hoody and block everything else out. But there were dozens and dozens of other smells around her and she couldn’t block them out. Sometimes, she really hated her enhanced senses. Tears blurred her vision and she hated herself for it. She hadn’t cried when Wanda turned on her. She hadn’t cried when she beat up Flash. Why was she crying so much now? Things had finally gotten better. She had enough to eat. It was warm. She was out of the group home. Mr Stark and Miss Potts had _fostered_ her!!! Ned had forgiven her!!! She should be ecstatic.

So why did she still feel so hollow?

For the second time in 48 hours Penny cried herself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penny and Ned have made up! 
> 
> Sorry to end on an angsty note. Unfortunately, mental health struggles don't just go away because some things get better and I'm writing as such. If you're looking for a story where the narrative peaks and then goes in a straight line towards a resolution, this story isn't for you. Healing is never a straight line, and rarely complete, and that's going to be reflected in this. 
> 
> Sorry this is a little shorter than usual. On the bright side though, I've written a one-shot of Natasha's perspective of chapter 7 and 8, which I just need to edit/at least proofread and will probably post on Thursday.
> 
> Comments make me happy :-)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Blue Jay - Terminal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29982936) by [Candy1319](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candy1319/pseuds/Candy1319)




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